Paul Bonel, SkillsActive's director of playwork said last week.
The shortage of qualified playwork assessors is 'so severe' in Devon that NVQ students are being forced to wait months to access training.
Eddie Gooding, training operations manager for Playlines, a training company in Devon, said, 'We have 65 childcare and playworkers waiting to undertake NVQ level 2 and 3 training but we cannot put them through immediately because there are not enough qualified assessors to help them complete their training.'
Mr Bonel said SkillsActive recognises the need for occupationally competent assessors and trainers and is working on a Sector Skills Agreement to identify the skills needs within the sector. 'The shortage of trainers and assessors will be one of the key issues. Government funding agencies like the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) need to recognise this enormous skills gap and give organisations like us the strategic resources we need to work with colleges and employers to recruit and train assessors.'
In 2002, SkillsActive, National Day Nurseries Association, 4Children and National Childminding Association submitted a proposal for LSC funding to develop a national programme to support the training of internal verifiers, mentors and assessors. At the time, there was an estimated gap of over 650 playwork assessors in England.
Gail Bailey, LSC sector policy manager, said, 'We are working with key stakeholders - including City and Guilds, Cache, SkillsActive, Children's Workforce Unit and a DfES Government adviser - to look at the volumes of registration, the number of inactive assessors and other sources of evidence to see if there's an actual decrease in the number of national assessors.'
The LSC said it also plans to work with stakeholders to develop a funding bid to establish a national pilot to examine capacity-building around assessment in early years, childcare and playwork.
Meynell Walter, organiser of the annual Playwork NVQ Conference, said the problem is not a shortage of assessors but a 'lack of proper understanding of how to deliver the Playwork NVQ effectively'. He said, 'Assessors lose interest in assessing candidates if they are overwhelmed with bureaucracy and paperwork.'
SkillsActive welcomes initiatives to address the assessor shortage. For example Leeds-based training company PlayScape trains playworkers as part-time assessors, while the West Midlands Centre for Playwork Education and Training has developed training support materials based on the revised Playwork National Occupational Standards.
