The study, which is part of the five-year Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) project, the first large-scale British study of its kind, suggests that playgroups and pre-schools face an uphill struggle in reaching the new national standards for the regulation of daycare. The standards, to be introduced from September, will say the manager of a playgroup should be qualified to NVQ level 3.
The EPPE study also found a strong correlation between the quality of the childcare environment provided and the qualifications of the centre manager, in terms of both activities and facilities and communication and supervision. Level 5 - that is, degree level - qualifications were consistently associated with better provision when compared with level 3 or 4 and level 2, and levels 3 and 4 were associated with better provision than level 2.
The report, Technical Paper 5: Characteristics of the Centres in the EPPE Study: Interviews, said playgroups had the lowest proportion of qualified staff of the range of settings studied. Almost one in ten playgroup managers and one in five playgroup staff had no childcare qualification at all.
The centre managers with the highest childcare qualifications were mostly found in education-based provision, such as nursery schools and nursery classes, rather than care-based provision such as local authority nurseries and private day nurseries. 'Combined centres', maintained settings which provide both care and education, also had high levels of staff at level 5.
Professor Kathy Sylva, one of the team leading the study, said, 'We welcome the Government's focus on improving qualifications in early childhood managers, because our national sample showed a strong link between the qualifications of staff, especially the managers, and the overall quality of provision in terms of pedagogy and facilities.' A spokesman for the Pre-school Learning Alliance said the research was based on a 'very small sample of pre-schools' which had been visited between October 1997 and July 1998. He added that another report, The Registered Pre-school/Playgroup Workforce Survey, carried out in 1998 by the Information and Development Agency on behalf of the Early Years National Training Organisation and published in 1999, found that three-quarters of all paid staff had relevant qualifications and was based on a 'much more widespread sample'.
Staff salaries were highest in nursery schools and combined centres, followed in order by nursery classes, local authority centres, private day nurseries and playgroups.
