An historic moment for early childhood education

An historic moment for early childhood education in New Zealand

Sue Thorne's speech to the 'men in early child care and teaching summit'

My name is Sue Thorne. I head the Early Childhood Council, the largest representative body of licensed early childhood education centres in New Zealand. We have 1000 member centres that are both community and privately owned, that teach 50,000 children and employ more than 7000 staff throughout New Zealand.

Not enough of them are men.

And that is why I could not be happier for the Early Childhood Council to be the principal sponsor of this event. Why I could not be happier than to stand here today welcoming dozens of you to a childcare summit. I have never seen so many male early childhood teachers in one place. It is a great sight to see.

I am aware that men in our sector can face substantial difficulties: the view of others that it is somehow 'not normal' to be a man and working with young children; the isolation of being the only man on your training course or in your centre; the pernicious suspicion that you may not be as safe around children as women.

And yet here you are.

I want you to know that the Early Childhood Council thanks you. I want you to know that the Early Childhood Council supports you. We view you as important. We view you as pioneers for the male early childhood teachers who are to come.

The problem we have as a sector is that we do not have enough of you. In 2005 we had 13,609 women and only 132 men. That is pathetic.

In 1992 men made up 2% of those working in our early childhood education. Today you are fewer than 1%, the lowest recorded figure, and falling still. That is unacceptable.

It is unacceptable because in the absence of men our sector fails to offer a valuable option to the families we serve.

As well as the teaching and the caring that is the core of what you do, you bring some special things to the children you look after. You provide an invaluable male influence, especially for those children who have no man at home. You bring rapport with fathers and an intuitive understanding of what boys need. And you help teach both boys and girls that good men are sensitive and nurturing as well as strong and competitive.

Recent national campaigns to attract more men have succeeded in Denmark, Belgium and Britain. Norway will achieve 20% by the end of this year. And there is no reason, it seems to me, why New Zealand cannot do the same.

That is why the Early Childhood Council is hosting, at its annual conference that starts here tomorrow, a workshop that will create a campaign to get more men into our sector.

This workshop will be no talk shop. It will be about defining an action plan, then seeing to it that the action is delivered.

The Minister of Education Steve Maharey will be at this workshop. So will the Chair of Parliament's Education and Science Select Committee Brian Donnelly. So will those who teach our early childhood education teachers: senior academics from the universities of Auckland and Canterbury, and the head of the New Zealand Childcare Association. So will senior representatives from organizations such as the Kindergartens, Kohanga Reo, and the Pacific Islands Early Childhood Council. I'll be there. And so will two of you, there to represent the views of this summit.

International research suggests a sustained increase in the number of men working in early childhood education requires a sustained effort from all organizations in the early childhood sector. And that is exactly what we are going to do.

The centres cannot not do it on their own, because they cannot attract trained male teachers who did not exist. The teacher trainers cannot do it on their own if centres do not provide environments in which men want to work. The Government cannot do it on its own if the sector is not ready to back new policy with new action.

I believe that this is an historic moment for early childhood education in New Zealand. And that you are the pioneers for the many hundreds of men who will come into this sector in the next decade or so.

So take a look at the faces in this room. This is the summit, and tomorrow begins the conference, where the decline in the number of men in our sector is ended for good.

Ends

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