Blog post Part of special issue: Revisiting the Children’s Plan: Towards a new manifesto for tackling early years inequality

(Re)focusing on high-quality early childhood education and care

Sara Bonetti, Independent researcher at Education Policy Institute 24 Jan 2025

Over the past 25 years, the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector in England has undergone significant transformations. As the evidence of its positive impact on children’s social and educational outcomes accumulated, successive governments have been searching for the perfect formula in terms of number of hours, staffing ratios, pedagogical approaches, accountability measures and interventions. As a result, public spending has increased from £1.5 billion in 2001–02 to £5.4 billion in 2022–23 (Drayton & Farquharson, 2023). And yet, ECEC still has not realised its full potential in terms of improving children’s outcomes and narrowing the disadvantage gap. (EPI, 2024). In this blog post, I explore some of the reasons for this shortfall and make an argument for the Labour government to set a Workforce Strategy that tackles the challenges faced by the ECEC workforce.

The need to (re)establish a workforce strategy

In research I carried out for the Social Mobility Commission’s report on the stability of the early years workforce in England (SMC, 2020), we identified six obstacles to a stable workforce:

low income
high workload and responsibilities
over-reliance on female practitioners
insufficient training and opportunities for progression
low status and reputation
negative organisational culture and climate.

Low pay, in particular, is a major driver of workforce instability. But the issues extend beyond low wages. Even before the Covid-19 crisis, around 45 per cent of ECEC staff claimed state benefits or tax credits, compared to 34 per cent of the broader female workforce (Bonetti, 2019). How can ECEC promote social mobility when its own workforce faces disadvantage and social inequalities?

‘How can the early childhood education and care sector promote social mobility when its own workforce faces disadvantage and social inequalities?’

A (re)focus on quality

The Covid-19 pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and rising poverty rates have underscored the complexity of the challenges that children and families are facing. ECEC alone cannot be a cure-all for the myriad factors influencing children’s growth and learning. But it still plays a crucial role in children’s lives, with both short- and long-term impacts (Carneiro et al., 2024).

The evidence is clear, however, that provision must be high quality to have a positive impact on children (Foundation for Child Development, 2020). And yet the expansion has come at the expense of a systemic focus on quality.

A (re)focus on the workforce

Without a qualified, skilled, confident and healthy workforce there is no high-quality ECEC. The business world understands that ‘happy employees lead to happy clients’, but this principle seems lost in ECEC, where working conditions are notoriously challenging, with long, exhausting hours not adequately compensated or socially valued.

With 35 per cent of professionals considering leaving the sector due to stress and mental health difficulties, we must do better. These challenges create a difficult environment for both professionals and children, who are often deprived of one of the key pillars of quality: consistent, stable relationships with their key person(s).

What should the Labour government do?

There are several elements of systemic reform that the new Labour government must tackle to support the workforce, including: a concerted effort to increase qualification levels; dedicated funding for CPD and coaching opportunities; and a serious consideration of how to improve efficiency in the funding system, which could open up solutions to increase compensation levels.

Change is possible, but it takes political will. In the US, clear regulations, the right financial incentives and a well-thought-through timeline led the Head Start programme to surpass the statutory requirement that half of its preschool teachers have degrees in early childhood by September 2003 (see GAO, 2003). The 2024 rule went further and included requirements for Head Start programmes to pay educators higher salaries, comparable to local public preschool teachers.

Similar success was possible in New Zealand, thanks to the long-term commitment of the government, through the 10-year strategic plan Pathways to the Future: Ngā Huarahi Arataki. This set out targets that required teacher-led services to have 50 per cent or more of regulated staff that are registered teachers by 2007 and 80 per cent by 2010.

Change is essential, and, while some solutions may offer quicker results than others, all require sustained efforts and a clear strategy. Therefore, a workforce strategy with short- and long-term goals, backed by appropriate investments must be part of the government’s Children’s Plan. We know by now that it does not pay off to go cheap on our children.

References

Bonetti, S. (2019). The early years workforce in England. A comparative analysis using the Labour Force Survey. Education Policy Institute. https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/The-early-years-workforce-in-England_EPI.pdf

Carneiro, P., Cattan, S., & Ridpath, N. (2024). The short- and medium-term impacts of Sure Start on educational outcomes. Institute for Fiscal Studies. https://ifs.org.uk/publications/short-and-medium-term-impacts-sure-start-educational-outcomes

Drayton, E., & Farquharson, C. (2023). Early years spending update: Budget reforms and beyond. Institute for Fiscal Studies. https://ifs.org.uk/publications/early-years-spending-update-budget-reforms-and-beyond

Education Policy Institute [EPI]. (2024). Annual report. https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/annual-report-2024/

Foundation for Child Development. (2020). Getting it right: Using implementation research to improve outcomes in early care and education. https://www.fcd-us.org/getting-it-right-using-implementation-research-to-improve-outcomes-in-early-care-and-education/

General Accounting Office [GAO]. (2003). Head Start: Increased percentage of teachers nationwide have required degrees, but better information on classroom teachers’ qualifications needed. https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-04-5.pdf

Social Mobility Commission [SMC]. (2020). The stability of the early years workforce in England. An examination of national, regional and organisational barriers. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-stability-of-the-early-years-workforce-in-england

Sara Bonetti, Dr

Independent researcher at Education Policy Institute

Sara Bonetti is a researcher with more than 15 years of experience advocating on behalf of children and families within government, non-profit and research institutions. Her work focuses on the early childhood education and care workforce, and the relationship between workforce characteristics and children’s outcomes. She has also done extensive research on leadership and systems integration. Previously she was Interim Director of the Institute of Early Years Education, a membership organisation for individual working in early childhood education and care. She was also Director of Early Years at the Education Policy Institute and an international consultant on early childhood education programmes for the Education Outcomes Fund, working on projects based in Rwanda and Sierra Leone. Before moving to the UK, she spent a decade working in the early childhood education and care sector in the United States, first as a teacher and then as a researcher for local government and research...