Training key to raising quality of nursery provision

Researchers at Oxford University have claimed that ensuring adults working in early-years settings have good qualifications and ongoing training is key to raising the quality of provision.

The study indicates that well trained staff could make up for larger numbers of children to adults, but they stress that this is not an argument to reduce the ratio of staff members to children, which should be ‘maintained at a favourable level’.

Analysing data from 598 early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings across England, Oxford University collected information on the training, qualifications and staff-to-child ratios of early-years workers looking after three- and four-year-olds who were born between September 2010 and August 2013.

The analysis discovered that state-funded settings tended to have higher quality ratings and suggest the presence of highly qualified staff maintained this quality, despite the fact that staff to pre-schooler ratios were less favourable.

The researchers are now urging policy-makers to work to ‘increase staff qualifications and to provide enhanced opportunities for ECEC staff to obtain in-service professional development’, and maintain staff-child ratios at ‘as favourable a level as is pragmatically viable’.

Edward Melhuish, lead researcher, said: "A better staff-to-child ratio leads to improvements in quality but staff qualifications and training is the most important factor. Our study shows that having well trained and qualified staff increases the quality of education and care in a child's early years. Also, better staff-to-child ratios mean staff can spend more time in one-to-one interaction with children and this is very beneficial."