Two postgraduate teaching degrees with specialist skills in early years are being piloted in Scotland later this year.

From this autumn, around 40 teachers working in early years settings across the north of Scotland will start the Postgraduate Certificate in Early Education in Aberdeen, and a class of around 20 undergraduate students at the University of Stirling will begin the BA Professional Education (Primary) with a specialism in early years.

The courses have been designed to provide specific training in early education so that graduate teachers can best meet the needs of younger children in nursery and early primary school. The University of Stirling already offers two primary education pathways with specialisms in either the environment or modern languages and this will be its first education pathway with an early years specialism.

The Scottish Government is funding the pilot courses for their first year by £156,000 and just over £60,000 respectively. Last year it launched the BA Childhood Practice qualification.

Children’s Minister Adam Ingram announced the courses at an Early Years Framework conference in Edinburgh last week. He said, "These qualifications will produce teachers with flexible skills in primary education who also have the benefit of intensive training specifically in early years education.

“We will see these specialists graduating from next year, when the Scottish Government will increase pre-school entitlement to 570 hours for every pupil." The Scottish Government has increased nursery entitlement to 475 hours per year for every child with a further increase to 570 hours coming in 2010.

Last December the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) launched the transformational Early Years Framework to improve the life chances of Scotland's children and tackle inequalities by targeting the early years.