A petition calling on the Government to provide extra funding for childcare practitioners to enable them to train has been put on the 10 Downing Street website.

The petition has been posted by Sally Eaton, Education Director for the Childcare Company. It states, “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Provide more funding for Childcare Practitioners to achieve the qualifications they need to meet government targets.”

The petition adds, “The Government has set firm targets for all childcare workers to be qualified to Level 3 by 2015. Yet there is a vast shortfall in the amount of funding available to those who need to train, this is in excess of 15,000 trainees. “If the Government wants high-quality childcare and if indeed it embraces the concept that Every Child Matters, it needs to prove it by raising the funding to a level that is sufficient for the needs of the sector.”

Mrs Eaton said she had posted the petition because the Government wanted to have a professionalised early years and childcare workforce but there was not enough money to pay for it. “There are lots of people out there wanting to start their courses and there’s no funding for it, which is very frustrating.

“Basically, we can be committed to providing the high-quality training and the practitioners are committed to doing the training. But we can’t do it without the funding and there isn’t sufficient funding to get everybody there (to Level 3) by 2015.”

In January the Government published the document, Next Steps for Early Learning and Childcare: Building on the 10-Year Strategy, which included a commitment to considering making it a legal requirement that every childcare professional is qualified to A-Level or equivalent standard within the next six years.

At the time of its launch, Beverley Hughes, Minister for Children, said, “We want this country to be the best place in the world for children to grow up and in order to ensure that every child gets the best possible start in life; early learning and childcare professionals need to have the same level of professionalism as teachers.

“This is why we are considering making it a legal requirement for anyone working in early learning or childcare to have at least an A Level or equivalent relevant qualification from 2015.”

The document was signed by four Government ministers – Ed Balls, Children’s Secretary, Beverley Hughes, Children’s Minister, James Purnell, Work and Pensions Secretary, and Yvette Cooper, Chief Secretary to the Treasury. But in the past week Ms Hughes and Mr Purnell have resigned from the Government. Mrs Eaton said, “The document has all these signatures from Government ministers saying this is what we desire with our aspiration. But there’s no money for it.”

She called for the Government “to come clean” and admit that the document “isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on”.

The petition is on the 10 Downing Street website at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Childcarecompany.