NURSERY workers have the fewest qualifications and lowest pay in the childcare sector, a Scottish Government-commissioned review has found.

The Independent Review of the Scottish Early Learning and Childcare Workforce found such carers looked after children at the most important developmental stage of their lives and should be paid at least the living wage and have appropriate qualifications.

However, it found many pre-school providers were paying little more than the minimum wage to staff and that the number of qualified early-years teachers was decreasing.

The report, by internationally-renowned early-years expert Professor Iram Siraj, called for a 15-year vision to reform Scotland's childcare workforce.

However, public services union Unison said Scotland's children could not wait 15 years and called for urgent reform.

Meanwhile, the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) called on the Scottish Government to ensure qualified teachers were at the heart of early years education.

Following the report's publication, Angela Constance, the Education Secretary, earmarked £1 million to implement some of the review's recommendations.

Ms Constance said: "The early years are a crucial point in a child's development, therefore it is vital that we invest in those tasked with caring for and educating our young children.

"By boosting skills and recognising the value of the early-years workforce, we will attract the brightest and best to the sector. I'm pleased we can allocate £1 million to continue staff development in the sector."

Scotland's out-of-school care sector is "slightly more diverse" than England, with more men, disabled workers and ethnic minorities, but "the largest proportion of the workforce is female, most work is part-time and low-paid, with many supplementing their income with another job", the report found.

Poor pay and training has been a constant feature of early-years childcare, with the National Research Council concluding in 2001 that there was "a serious mismatch between the preparation and compensation of the average early childhood professional and the growing expectations of parents and policy makers".

The report said: "Despite the upskilling of the workforce, unequal rates of pay remain within early learning and childcare - with the largest inequalities in the private and third sector. Low wages and high expectations are also found in the out-of-school care sector."

Poor pay and training was more prevalent in the private sector and the report found a migration of carers to public-sector work following the Scottish Government's decision to increase free childcare for three and four-year-olds.

The report recommended: "If children's outcomes are to be supported and enhanced, it is important to ensure that there are highly-qualified and knowledgeable practitioners in all settings who lead learning and sensitively support families in developing a stimulating home learning environment.

"Every strong profession has good initial, graduate entry routes. More new and creative, initial graduate degrees designed for practitioners leading learning should be developed.

"This could arrest the decline in numbers of teachers working face-to-face with young children, and should not threaten the work-based childhood practice degree programme or discourage further and higher educational institutions from offering their initial degree programmes to work-based practitioners through more creative, flexible delivery options."

It also recommended: "All practitioners should receive the living wage, or above, rather than the minimum wage."

National childcare agency Children in Scotland said: "A child's earliest years see the most rapid development in the human brain than at any other period in the life course, but that a child's experiences during this critical period influence, for good or ill, the course of her or his future life.

"We, therefore, consider that it is an anomaly that those who work with children at this critical and formative stage generally have the lowest level of qualification and the worst pay and conditions in the children and young people's workforce."

Carol Ball, chair of Unison Scotland's education issues group, said: "We cannot wait another 15 years for change. We need to set minimum qualifications for all childcare and early learning workforce at HNC level."

And the EIS called on the Scottish Government to re-affirm its commitment to the use of registered teachers in nursery schools and nursery classes.

EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan said: "We will be pressing the Scottish Government to re-affirm its commitment to the importance of teacher involvement in all nursery schools and classes and for a clear and binding duty on local authorities to ensure appropriate access to a teacher for all nursery-aged children."