Men ‘discouraged’ from childcare jobs

JUST one in 200 people working in the childcare sector in Ireland are men, a conference heard yesterday.

And it was claimed efforts to balance the caring environment are not being helped by some school guidance counsellors who are discouraging male students who express an interest in childcare as a career.

“There are an awful lot of men who want to work in the caring profession but they are being actively discouraged from realising their ambition,” said Jan Petersen, a lecturer in early childhood development at Dublin Institute of Technology.

However, Mr Pettersen, a lecturer in early childhood development at Dublin Institute of Technology, does not believe the Ferns Report should increase fears that a man with a deviant personality could be recruited into childcare.

While lessons had to be learned from the report, it would be unfair to draw parallels with a situation where men who were not vetted, supervised or trained were allowed to come in close contact with vulnerable children, he said.

Childcare facilities now had a very transparent environment with strict vetting and monitoring policies in place, he pointed out.

The conference held in Dublin and hosed by the Men in Childcare Network in association with Dublin City Childcare, was organised to look at ways of balancing the caring environment.

Another speaker, Peter Moss, professor of Early Childhood Education Provision in the University of London, blamed education and employment practices for creating a gender imbalance in childcare.

Prof Moss said childcare was still mostly regarded as “woman’s work” and it was “unmanly” to be involved in it. He also referred to the absence at all levels of a coherent strategy for change.