‘Sexist attitude’ in education

Male early childhood teachers excluded from nappy-changing duties is just one example of a ‘‘sexist attitude’’ in the sector, lobbyists say.

ChildForum and the Men in Early Childhood Network NZ (ECMenz) claim there is an ‘‘unconscious bias’’ against male teachers in the early childhood sector. They make up only 2 per cent of the workforce, giving New Zealand one of the lowest rates in the world.

The organisations are calling for the Government to develop policies and strategies to meet a target of at least 5 per cent male teachers in early childhood education by 2022.

Education Minister Nikki Kaye said the ministry would look at encouraging diversity.

‘‘I think it’s really important to have diversity in the workforce and for children to have good male role models as teachers.’’

EC-Menz president Russell Ballantyne said when he graduated as a kindergarten teacher in 1982, there were only 20 men in the workforce. By the end of the 1980s it reached its current rate of 2 per cent men.

‘‘Early childhood isn’t diverse; there is underlying unconscious bias.’’

He recently heard of a male early childhood graduate teacher being told he was unable to change nappies or help with toileting children at his centre. It was later amended to a six-month trial for the families to get to know him before his duties were reassessed.

It was a perfect example of sexism, Ballantyne said.

‘‘All centres have strong nappychanging policies. If it’s not safe for a male to change [nappies], then it’s not safe for a female to.’’

Centres needed training on unconscious bias, he said.

‘‘People are just happy to let the bias remain.’’

He visited the Ministry of Edu- cation and Education Council to discuss the issue last year and, while it was recognised, ‘‘no-one was prepared to pick it up and run with it’’.

He and his wife owned a centre in Dunedin with four male teachers, which was what attracted many enrolments, along with its approach to risk-taking play.

ChildForum chief executive Dr Sarah Alexander, who has been highlighting the country’s lack of male early childhood teachers for at least 20 years, said no teacher should be prevented from performing their full role on the basis of gender. ‘‘It’s a human rights issue.’’

While it was a long time ago, some centres ‘‘held on to the Peter Ellis time to manage and control their staff, and to limit men’s involvement as teachers’’.

Ellis spent seven years in prison after being convicted of 16 charges of sexually abusing seven children at a Christchurch creche in the early 1990s, but always maintained his innocence.

Other countries were ‘‘leaving us behind’’ in increasing male early childhood teaching numbers, with the Government ’’failing to do anything about it’’, Alexander said.

A 2012 OECD document states ‘‘many countries are concerned that the proportion of males in teaching is significantly low’’.

In most countries, 95 per cent of pre-primary staff were female. Finland with 98.6 per cent, New Zealand with 98.4 per cent, and Sweden with 97 per cent, were the countries with the highest proportion of female staff at the time of the report.

Education Ministry head of data Craig Jones said the number of male early childhood education teachers was increasing over time but remained low. ‘‘This disparity is not unique to New Zealand.’’

As of June 2014, there were 18,535 qualified female teaching staff and 321 qualified male teaching staff at licensed teacher-led early childhood centres.