Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding has been made available for graduate training in the childcare and early-education workforce in England in each of the last five years for which data is available.

Early years initial teacher training (EYITT) was introduced in September 2013 and built on its predecessor, Early Years Professional Status. To date, over 16,000 specialist graduates have been trained.

There are currently four EYITT routes available, including a route for graduates already employed in an early years setting. Funding is available for training course fees, with additional funding (£7,000) to enable early years employers to release an employee to participate in training. To encourage the best graduates into the early years workforce we also provide bursaries of between £2,000 and £5,000 to eligible trainees. The EYITT training routes are demand-led and we have always met the needs of EYITT providers in terms of numbers of places requested.