Labour has questioned the Scottish Government's commitment to early education after figures revealed the number of qualified teachers in nurseries has fallen by more than 900 since 2010.
Government statistics show there were 2,420 qualified nursery teachers in 2010, but that fell to 1,519 by last year - a drop of 901.
Save the Children has urged the Scottish Government to increase the number of teachers working in nurseries as well as staff with specialist training in speech and language development.
Scottish Labour shadow education minister Daniel Johnson said: "All the evidence makes clear that the gap between the richest and the rest exists even with children at nursery. Early intervention is absolutely key to cutting the gap between the richest and the rest.
"Save the Children is calling for more qualified teachers in nurseries. That is something the SNP pledged to do in deprived areas, but Scotland has lost over 900 nursery teachers in the last five years.
"When will the SNP start to reverse this trend? The Nationalists said that education would be their top priority. If that is still true they should back Labour's amendments to the Scottish Budget so that we can use the powers of the Scottish Parliament to invest in education."
He questioned Nicola Sturgeon about the decline at First Minister's Questions on Thursday.
Ms Sturgeon told him: "We're already committed to expanding free early learning and childcare, including to the most vulnerable two-year-olds, and by 2018 providing nurseries in the most deprived areas of Scotland with an additional graduate or teacher with early learning expertise.
"There's no doubt at all that the key to solving this issue is early education, and that's why it's important that we look at expanding not just the quantity of it but the quality of it as well, and the Early Years Minister Mark McDonald is absolutely focused on doing both."
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