AS a nation our most precious commodity is surely our children. They represent the future of our place in the world as well as the future of our families, so small wonder then that the coalition’s new proposals on nursery care have provoked a storm of debate.

In our nurseries we have some of the tightest ratios of carers to children in Europe, and for good reason – one person being entrusted with the care of four two-year-olds, each of them as precious to their family as the next, is a position of mammoth responsibility that can’t be underestimated.

So to say that from the autumn it will be perfectly fine to give another two toddlers to a nursery nurse to look after is an ill-thought-out recipe that has the potential to compromise on care.

Picture it – six busy, chattering little people all clamouring for the attention of one person who not only has to keep them entertained, supervise their social skills, help them with their potty training, and keep them happy and healthy but, above all, keep them safe and out of harm’s way.

It’s a tall order for anyone, never mind a teenager with a minimum grade C in GCSE English and maths.

For this, we are told, will become the minimum educational requirement for training as a childcare professional, and while no one’s suggesting that anyone looking after young children should have a string of A-levels or even a degree, the fact that a grade C in maths and English is NOT currently required shows that while we might have among the tightest adult to child ratio in Europe, we’re not too bothered about the educational calibre of the people we entrust with our children’s lives.

We’ve been too busy in recent years suggesting that educational no-hopers would be best suited to training in nursery care. Marking someone down as not very bright but could be good with children seems to make a nonsense of the pre-school learning philosophy of helping get our toddlers ready for their educational journey through life.

Small wonder then that child-care professionals are among the worst paid. I know someone who has been in the sector for 35 years, who trained at a time when training meant something, who has a string of child-care qualifications to her name that she has acquired over time to keep herself informed and up to date with the latest pre-school developments, who loves with a passion seeing little people flourish and is immensely proud to have helped hundreds of children over the years to embark on their journey through life.

And what does she earn? The princely sum of £16,800 a year for being at the forefront of developing our nation’s future capability.

It is paltry reward for such an important role, and clearly, nursery nurses aren’t in it for the money. So when we prevail upon such dedicated professionals to give high-quality care to our children it massively lets down those youngsters and their families when that care is compromised.