Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 26 May 2022
286. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the estimated additional cost of increasing the learner fund to allow all childcare workers currently holding level five qualifications to progress to level six from September 2022. [27075/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraExtrapolated 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 24.9% held a relevant Level 5 major award as their highest qualification, i.e. approximately 6,520 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 this same level of bursary were to be extended to the cohort referenced above, the cost would be €4.9 million to support 6,520 early years educators.
However, this would not mean that the Level 6 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.
To estimate the cost of ensuring that the upskilling were free-of-charge to staff, a sample of relevant Level 6 programmes was examined. On the basis of a review of fees, it is estimated that the full cost for 6,530 practitioners to undertake a Level 6 award would be between approximately €6.5 million and €12.4 million.
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.
