The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) last week launched a campaign, 'What's Stopping You?', seeking to persuade young men and young women to consider alternatives to stereotypical career patterns.
To highlight this the EOC pointed out that only two per cent of the Advanced Modern Apprenticeships in Early Years Care and Education in June 2001 were taken by men and 98 per cent by women. In contrast, at Foundation GNVQ level, 98 per cent of engineering students were male and two per cent female; 81 per cent of IT students were male and 19 per cent female; and 92 per cent of health and social care students were female and eight per cent male.
Julie Mellor, EOC chair, said, 'Many employers have told us they are keen for the EOC to tackle this issue. They want to be able to recruit from a wide pool of women and men. However, they feel there are limits to what they can do at the point of recruitment, when choices made at an early age may have already sent young people off along traditional career paths.' The Early Years National Training Organisation said it was not surprised at the low percentage of male early years care students, in the light of its own research findings. Chief executive Savita Ayling said, 'Ninety-eight per cent of the early years workforce are women. There are all sorts of historical reasons why this is, and we are working with the Department for Education and Skills to recruit into the sector under-represented groups - men, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and older people.
'It's a complicated issue as it ties in with people's perception of the early years sector, their cultural perception of male childcare workers and the underlying fear of paedophilia and the erroneous belief that all paedophiles are men, which they're not.'
She called on the early years sector to do its part. 'It must make a concerted effort to promote to parents the benefits of recruiting staff from a whole range of different people, instead of mainly young white women.'
Rosemary Murphy, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, said, 'There is a recognised need for more men in childcare, but until it is seen as an acceptable role for men to play in society, we won't see this happening.
'The social acceptance of male childcarers is a bigger barrier to young males coming into the sector than low wages.'
