Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many early years teachers she expects to be recruited over the course of this Parliament; and whether the new early years workforce strategy will include details of dedicated funding for the recruitment of new early years teachers.

The Department does not use a workforce supply model for early years initial teacher training. We have an ambition to grow the number of graduates who are entering the early years teaching profession, and make places available to meet the demand from the market.

Funding is available for training course fees, with additional funding for nursery employers to help them support graduates in their setting to become early years teachers. To encourage the best graduates into the early years workforce we provide bursaries to eligible trainees.

The workforce strategy will help employers attract, retain and develop staff to deliver high quality provision across the early years sector. As part of the strategy we are considering what government can do to help grow the graduate workforce in the sector.

The workforce strategy will be published shortly.