Being the only man on this female dominated course and the butt of the teachers’ jokes was hard in the beginning. “I cried every evening for the first few weeks. I had a good friend there who helped get me through it but I spent a lot of time crying into my pillow at home,” [John Warren] admits.
This did happen many years ago and he says “things have improved since I started out but men still encounter prejudice” and men are still very much a minority in childcare as only two per cent of the early years workforce is male and this statistic has remained steady in the past decade, despite national and local recruitment campaigns aimed at men.
Sue Learner, daynurseries.co.uk (7/3/2013)
I am lucky to have had a mostly positive experience (with a few exceptions) as a male early childhood educator in Australia. But the numbers are still low in Australia, and I have heard a lot of my male colleagues still suffering similar prejudice and suspicion.
This will continue to be a major challenge for the sector until a coordinated and holistic approach to recruiting male educators is implemented.
Liam McNicholas 