Good Practice for Good Jobs in Early Childhood Education and Care by OECD

Author:OECD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: education/employment/socialissues
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Published: 2019-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

Box 2.4. England’s Early Years Professional Programme

In 2007, England introduced its Early Years Professional Programme (EYPP), a series of measures aimed at bringing university-educated staff into the dominant private, voluntary and independent (PVI) ECEC sector. Motivated by studies that found university graduate-led centres provide higher quality services (Sylva et al., 2010[51]), the aim at the time was to require all day care centres to have at least one university-educated member of staff with accredited “Early Years Professional Status” by 2015. Early Years Professional Status (EYPS) was not a qualification in its own right. Rather, it was an award given to staff with university-level qualifications (in any discipline) following a period of placement, training and assessment. University graduates not already working in the sector could also attain EYPS through an alternative one-year training programme.

The EYPP had several objectives. As well as improving process quality, it was hoped that the introduction of the EYPS award would help contribute to the professionalisation of the sector, improve options for career progression, help challenge early years practitioners’ perceived lack of status, and encourage graduates to join the ECEC workforce. It was also hoped that workers with EYPS would also use their skills to improve practice and help other workers develop.

By many measures, the EYPP was successful in achieving several of its aims. Following the introduction of the EYPP, the share of staff in private full-day care centres with at least a university degree more than doubled, from 5% in 2008 to 13% in 2013 (Brind et al., 2014[52]). The share of senior managers with a degree also almost doubled, from 17% in 2008 to 33% in 2013 (Brind et al., 2014[52]). A Department of Education-commissioned evaluation of the programme by the University of Wolverhampton concluded that the EYPP had “a very positive impact … in supporting workforce development” and that it helped create “a cohort of workers that are more willing and confident to take on leadership roles and enact improvements to service delivery” (Hadfield et al., 2012[53]). It also found that attaining EYPS has helped many staff improve their own sense of status. A second study focusing on process quality found that gaining a member of staff with EYPS was associated with a significant improvement in quality (Mathers et al., 2011[54]).

However, although successful in several ways, there remained concerns around the status of the EYPS award, as well as the level and rigour of pre-service training involved when gaining EYPS (Nutbrown, 2012[55]). These revolved in particular around the lack of parity between EYPS and the qualifications held by teachers in the primary and secondary education sectors. In 2012, the government-commissioned Nutbrown Review of Early Education and Childcare Qualifications (Nutbrown, 2012[55]) recommended that the EYPS award be replaced by a new early years teacher qualification that would provide greater teaching-oriented training and match the rigour and status of primary and secondary education teaching qualifications.

In 2014, the Early Years Professional Programme was superseded by the Early Years Teacher Programme (EYTP). In line with the Nutbrown recommendation,

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