Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 26 May 2022
287. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the estimated additional cost of increasing the learner fund to a level which would allow 50% of childcare workers currently holding level six qualifications to progress to level seven from September 2022. [27076/22]
View answerExtrapolated data from the Annual Early Years Sector Profile 2020/2021 suggests that in 2021 there were approximately 26,200 staff working directly with children in Early Learning and Care (ELC) services, of whom 36.9% held a relevant Level 6 major award as their highest qualification. On that basis, it can be assumed that supporting 50% of those with Level 6 to achieve a relevant Level 7 award would involve approximately 4,830 staff.
Currently the Learner Fund provides a bursary of €750 for staff who complete a relevant degree-level qualification (Level 7 or Level 8). If a bursary of this size were to be provided to 4,830 staff, the cost would be €3.6 million.
However, this would not mean that the degree-level qualification was free-of-charge for participants as my Department only partly funds early years educators to pursue a higher qualification under the Learner Fund. The full cost is significantly higher with a substantial proportion being borne by early years educators.
To estimate the cost of ensuring that the upskilling were free-of-charge to staff, a sample of relevant part-time degree programmes was examined, in which the annual fees were found to range from €3,150 to €4,990 per year. The Professional Award Criteria and Guidelines for Initial Professional Education (Level 7 and 8) degree programmes for the Early Learning and Care sector in Ireland which were published in April 2019 will set the standard of new Level 7 ELC qualifications at 3 years in duration. In the sample of degree programmes examined, the total cost per student would therefore range from €9,450 to €14,970. If this full cost were to be covered for 4,830 early years educators, the total cost to the State would be between €45.6 million and €72.3 million.
In addition, it should be noted that this calculation does not take into account staff turnover in the sector, which would increase the number of staff requiring support, in order to achieve the 50% target.
In December last, I published Nurturing Skills, the Workforce Plan for Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare, 2022 to 2028. Nurturing Skills commits to the provision of funded places on flexible education programmes at levels 6 to 8 for current early years educators. This new funding will support upskilling and strengthen career development pathways for those working in the sector, reducing the cost to educators of undertaking further and higher education qualifications.
The new funding scheme will also develop and introduce mechanisms for providing financial support to early learning and care services to help meet the costs of releasing staff to go on student practice placements and study leave. Plans for the new funding scheme are currently being developed.
