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by Jess Gibson

An early years qualification-checking digital service is set to be introduced, the Department for Education (DfE) has confirmed.

The early years digital service will be an online portal to help providers through the qualification-checking process, targeted primarily at early years managers.

The service – the development of which was announced in August 2024 – was received positively during the pilot stage and is now being scheduled for release later in the spring. 

The pilot phase of the project ran in September and October 2024, with a large group of early years managers selected to be as representative as possible of the wider early years community. 

Early stages of the project identified that early years managers and practitioners had a number of issues when assessing potential employees’ qualifications and suitability. 

These include: 

• difficulty identifying if an early years qualification is ‘full and relevant’. 

• limited awareness around the need for ‘full and relevant’ qualifications for staff to count in Level 2, 3 or 6 staff:child ratios. 

• a lack of clarity around “meaningful next steps” when a qualification is found to not be ‘full and relevant’. 

The service is part of the DfE’s ongoing work to support the expansion of the early years workforce by 35,000 by September 2025 and ensure that this workforce includes sufficient suitably-qualified educators to meet ratio requirements.