Policies for day care and education for children under eight are to be merged under one Government department. The Department for Education and Employment will take on responsibility, from the Department of Health, for day care, including the regulation of nurseries and child minders. The policy transfer will not directly alter the work of local education and social services departments.
Placing responsibility for day care, early year’s education, out of school clubs and holiday play schemes under one roof will end division and inconsistency. And it will help foster growth and development of services needed by young children and their families. It makes sense for department to take over these policies, especially as it will take forward the National Childcare Strategy.
Policy responsibilities moving to the Department for Education and Employment are: day care provision, local authority reviews and reports on services for under registration, regulation and inspection of day care, nurseries, childcare jobs and child minders
I am a private***registered*** FAMILY child care provider (NOT corporate)and have been for 18 years. I have been fingerprinted…. screened…..had a state and federal background check (every 5 years), spent many hours and LOTS of dollars on childcare courses, gone through the child abuse registry and still continue my education in workshops. My daycare parents recommend me highly to other clients and I am referred by Family and Children Services. I do family child care because I want to be able to offer the kind of care for children as I would want for my own. Family child care is VERY different from providers in corporate centers where I have worked where children have been herded like cattle…..
Many states and centers require a four-year degree in education for childcare jobs, or if not in that field, plenty of non-credit coursework and experience in addition. The government requires a Bachelor of Arts degree in ECE, sometimes a Master’s degree, but they’ll accept other degrees as long as you’ve got equivalent training and experience. All places, I think, should require at least two years of experience in a licensed facility, if not more in a supervisory /management role, before an individual is qualified to lead a center as a director.
Recruiting more women into stereotypically “male” occupations such as construction is the answer to the UK’s severe shortage of skilled plumbers, builders and engineers, according to a new report. An investigation by the Equal Opportunities Commission, finds a “clear link” between shortage sectors – well known to householders casting around for help when roofs leak or pipes burst - and the under- representation of women.
