After much consultation, the Level 2 and 3 early years qualifications were launched this summer, but there are still demands for further changes.
The new awards were a key element in the Labour Government's programme to reform and professionalise the workforce by creating a graduate leadership with all practitioners qualified to at least Level 3.
Although some hoped the awards would be dropped, or subjected to review by the coalition Government, the new Certificate and Diploma for the Children and Young People's Workforce were launched in August.
GILL MASON
'We have the first registrations coming through,' says Gill Mason, community and society adviser with City and Guilds. 'So at long last we are there. There has been a great deal of debate and negotiation around the qualifications and their appropriateness, but we are there. We have a product that is fit for purpose.'
There are outstanding questions to be resolved, such as whether the Level 2 certificate will be retained in the long term, whether the Level 3 diploma will be developed to be offered as a two year-course and become a bridge to higher education, or if there will be a suitable Level 4 award.
Steps to the next level
A key principle of the new awards is clarity, so where previously there were many different qualifications, there will now be just two awards. The idea is that learners will build up their qualifications in units which are transportable. There are core units that are mandatory and additional study units, which can be at a higher level. Thus, in completing one award, candidates can be taking steps towards the next stage.
SALLY EATON
'I like the diploma because the language is simpler,' says Sally Eaton, educational director of the Childcare Company. 'It is more straightforward for learners to know what is going to be required of them. It has enabled us to write some really good lessons which I think will embed the underpinning knowledge. In that way, we should be able to improve practice within the setting, which is what it is all about.
'We have added to the lessons a "think and challenge activity", where the learners are given practical scenarios, to work out how they would deal with particular situations, such as those involving health and safety. In this way, they can apply what they have learned.'
Ms Eaton appreciates the laddered approach to progression. 'I like the Level 2 and the way the additional units are set at Level 3, so for learners it will be a boost that will take them part-way to the Level 3 award,' she says. 'The Level 3 home-based childcare unit covers a great deal of the core mandatory units of the diploma. It means you can persuade a childminder to go on the home-based childcare unit, then encourage them that as they have completed about a third of the Level 3, they can easily take the whole diploma.'
Ms Eaton believes that the former plethora of qualifications made it hard to see which were full and valid. She says, 'To have one qualification as a baseline is a benefit, but I do not think it has been fully thought through where it sits in the scheme of things when it comes to learner development to graduate level.
'There are gaps and I hope it will be revisited. What needs to be looked at is how the qualifications are part of the process to develop people to graduate level, not just seen as an end in themselves. The Level 3 diploma is part of a bigger picture and needs to be seen as such.'
Two-year diploma fight
CACHE is leading the campaign for a two-year Level 3 diploma. Its chief executive, Richard Dorrance, says, 'The new Level 3 two-year diploma that we're developing would provide the opportunity to progress to a second year of study following on from the Level 3 diploma for the children and young people's workforce. We plan for it also to provide sufficient UCAS points to allow learners to progress to a full-time honours degree programme.'
The sector lobbied successfully for a Level 2 award to be retained on the early years qualifications ladder, but Ms Mason points out that when the Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC) announced that a Level 2 award would be offered, it was on the basis that the award would be reviewed after a year.
She adds, 'There will be pressure for the Level 2 to stay. There would be strong resistance to it being withdrawn. It is the entry point to the sector and is a valuable stepping stone. The fact people can take Level 3 units when undertaking their Level 2, allowing them to progress more swiftly, is welcome. But it needs to be retained in its own right.'
Employers and staff are also concerned about what is happening higher up the qualifications ladder. The CWDC encourages practitioners to take a foundation degree as a stepping stone to an honours degree and Early Years Professional Status, but Ms Eaton says many people in the sector would prefer to progress via a Level 4 award, but that none has been developed for the sector - at this stage.
'There is a swell of people across the sector who are angry, upset and annoyed about this. I can see that the thinking has been that a foundation degree covers Levels 4 and 5, but a foundation degree starts at a much higher bar than a Level 4. For a significant number of people, the prospect of having to start straight on to a foundation degree is so daunting that their entitlement to move through to graduate level may well be thwarted. I have heard practitioners say they will not go any further and will stick at the Level 3, rather than go on to the foundation degree.
'At a time when we are seeking to develop the profession, it should be made easier for people to progress, rather than making it seem like a mountain that they cannot climb.'
Ms Mason says there are proposals under consideration for a Level 4 health and social care qualification which could be used as a route by the early years workforce to EYPS.
Whatever the qualification an early years practitioner pursues, it will be accredited on the new Qualifications Curriculum Framework (QCF), which sets out how all regulated vocational qualifications should be structured, titled and quality-assured.
The idea behind the QCF, which was a New Labour initiative, is that it will be demand-led and respond to employers' needs and offer more flexible routes to gaining full qualifications by enabling people to build up awards credit by credit.
Meanwhile, CWDC, which oversaw the development of the new qualifications, has had its remit revised by the Government, including a £15m cut in its budget and an increased focus on support for frontline services.
Implementation of the Integrated Qualifications Framework, due to take effect this summer, has been delayed while it is subjected to review.
The mechanism, which is a partnership project between the CWDC and various skills agencies, has been designed as a guide to approved qualifications for those working with children and young people. In the current economic climate, with Whitehall departments drawing up programmes of cuts while trying to defend frontline services, the Integrated Qualifications Framework (IQF) itself is a possible casualty of the October spending review.
The only early years qualification initiative launched by the Government so far has been the recently announced New Leaders in Early Years programme, which has been launched by the CWDC in conjunction with Canterbury Christ Church University.
Thirty high-calibre graduates with at least a 2.1 honours degree are being recruited to begin the new post-graduate programme in November. A further 30 will be recruited in 2011.
Although in terms of government funding it is a very small scale project, it is significant that children's minister Sarah Teather has chosen to support a programme to develop graduate leadership of the sector.
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