The education of young children is being compromised because so few nursery staff are educated beyond secondary school level, a report suggests.

Only 7 per cent of nursery heads, nursery nurses and assistants have post-secondary school qualifications, the report found. The vast majority finished their training having passed GNVQ level 3, a vocational qualification that is equivalent to an A level.

The poorly qualified early-years workforce is in sharp contrast to much of Europe, and elsewhere, where the majority of staff are qualified to degree level, or have three years of intensive training in child development before they start work.

New Zealand is retraining its entire childcare workforce so that they are all of degree standard by 2012.

The skills crisis has come to light only months before the introduction of a new curriculum for all under5s in September, part of a government plan to raise standards in nurseries.

Education experts fear the curriculum will become a box-ticking exercise if staff do not have the skill or confidence to interpret the new rules. The report, which will be published this week by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), also identified a gulf between private and voluntary nurseries, which make up about 70 per cent of the sector, and govern-ment-funded nurseries attached to schools.

More than 80 per cent of staff at school-based nurseries are educated beyond secondary school level.

“There has been nothing like the scale of action needed to transform the low-skilled and low-paid childcare workforce,” said Graeme Cooke, co-author of the report. “This is despite all the evidence which shows that a highly skilled workforce is essential in early-years education.”

Research by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that highly qualified childcare workers are the decisive ingredient in getting children to behave well, socialise and start to learn before reaching school.

The Government aims to increase the number of graduates in nurseries and has stipulated that by 2015 each will have a graduate in charge. The IPPR said that this was a partial reading of the OECD research. “There is a limit to what a graduate leader can do with a low-skilled workforce, many of whom are qualified to GNVQ level 2 only, equivalent to a GCSE,” Mr Cooke said.

Purnima Tanuku, the chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, said: “Professional development has large costs attached for nurseries in terms of increased salaries, training costs and time away from the nursery, especially at higher levels.

“As salaries already account for 80 per cent of parental fees, investing in this area means that the costs will have to be passed on to parents.”

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