THERE is increasing awareness of how important the early years are in supporting a child's development among parents, professionals and policy-makers.

We know that if we get that period right then that bears fruit for those young people in the long-term and for society as a whole. That has led to a greater focus on the quality of education in the nursery setting.

We now also have a three-to-18 curriculum which implies there will be input from teachers in that learning. Families also want the provision of high-quality dependable and cost-effective childcare which fits in with the demands of working parents.

Most parents would not be expecting a full-time teacher within a nursery setting, but what they would certainly be expecting is a degree of input from a teacher, particularly where there are emerging issues with a youngster about the development of their learning.

Parents see the additional training and expertise of teaching staff would allow them to identify and address these issues as they emerge and that would be highly valued.

More generally, they are likely to believe the input from teaching staff has to be meaningful so someone doesn't waft in for an hour a week before going off to another school.

A lot of parents see pre-school as being about play and learning through play. A lot of good work goes on and there are many highly skilled people doing that who are not teachers, with many now highly qualified up to degree level.

l Eileen Prior is executive director of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council