Early years exodus as hundreds of Cork educators leave their jobs

Almost 350 early years staff left their jobs in Cork last year, as Early Childhood Ireland says that bringing wages in line with primary school teachers would result in more childcare places and smaller fees.

According to Pobal’s annual early years sector profile, the national average staff turnover is 25%. Cork, however, has turnovers of 29.3% in the city and 27.4% in the county.

In Cork, 345 educators left or changed jobs in 2023/2024 and, of these, as many as 140 held NFQ Level 7 or higher qualifications.

Early Childhood Ireland (ECI) launched its pre-budget submission today, urging the Government to name a date for bringing early years graduates under public pay and conditions on a par with primary school teachers, even if that date is 2028.

Not feasible

ECI director of policy Frances Byrne said that, without retaining educators, increasing places while decreasing fees for children and families in Cork is simply not feasible.

“There’s a few thousand early years staff members across the country who end up on the dole during the summer, unlike their primary school counterparts who quite likely get paid all year round,” she told The Echo.

“There’s a disparity between the two systems. To address these stark figures, there needs to be a brave politician — if it could be the Taoiseach that would be great — to name a date to bring these highly-qualified, hard-working staff in line with primary school teachers’ pay.

“Even if that date is in the second half of the current Government’s term, it would mean our 458 member settings in Cork could think about expansion, reopening rooms they may have closed, which would reduce the number of people on waiting lists.

“If the Government took up covering more wages, they could strike a deal and ask for fees to fall in exchange, and we think that would happen.”

Ms Byrne praised the last government for significantly increasing the funding, but said Ireland is still behind other European countries.

“We are last or second last in the league, and parents are paying high fees because of the legacy of underinvestment, and the fact that investment seems to have stalled around €1bn.”

Cost

She said ECI estimates that nationally it would cost about €475m to bring early years workers into public pay, but this would “reduce staff turnover, allow providers to think about expansion to deal with capacity issues, and bring about a fall in fees”.

She explained that, in Denmark, all children will be offered a place in a local setting or with a childminder before their first birthday, and that a country as wealthy as Ireland should aspire to a similar system.

“In Ireland, the greatest challenges facing our member settings are to do with staffing,” she said. 

“We’ve had members in Cork say they start to get a knot in their stomach at 4pm on Sunday dreading a text message saying someone isn’t well.

“They’ve had to close rooms for a day or a week because staffing is so tight.

“They say they are losing good staff, highly qualified, and they’re leaving to go to retail because not only are the wages not great in early years, but the employer can’t offer them a pay scale for the future.

“There’s lots of graduates with excellent degrees never going into early years settings at all.”