Shortage of Males in ECE Settings

Do you do a double take if you see a male teacher working in an Early Childhood Education (ECE) centre?  You could be forgiven when we consider that fewer than 2% of ECE teachers are men – on the whole, it’s not a sight we often see.  This dis-proportionate representation has been thrown into the spotlight recently by the media, but though this dynamic has received fresh attention, it is by no means a new problem. 

In a media release in January 2012, Chief Executive of the Early Childhood Council, Peter Reynolds, said that ECE teaching was one of the most gender-segregated professions in New Zealand. “Such segregation would not be tolerated in law or medicine,” he said. “It is ridiculous that it exists in a sector that has the fundamentally important job of nurturing our youngest of children.”

---