World News

A drive has been launched to attract more men into becoming primary school teachers in England.

The Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) says four in five applicants are women, though it has seen a rise in male applicants of 30%.

The TDA is bringing teachers into classroom events to encourage more men to consider a career in teaching.

It says that boys in particular could benefit from having male teachers as role models.

In the last Licensure Examinations for Teachers (LET), a total of 26,812 took the elementary level test while 23,975 took the secondary level exam.

Only one male examinee -- Gian Carlo Auxilian, a graduate of St. Anthony’s College in Antique—made it to the top 10 in the elementary level.

In the secondary level, 11 of the 25 topnotchers were men, including Benedict Barayuga of Central Luzon University and Gerard Vincent Mendoza of the University of the Philippines-Diliman who tied for first place.

Nearly 90 percent of elementary and secondary schoolteachers in a selective survey said schools should establish a quota for male teachers to correct the gender imbalance.

The Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations (KFTA) surveyed a total of 549 teachers; 433 males and 116 females across the nation between July 3 and 6. Most of the respondents replied that they face some problems in teaching and counseling students due to the lack of male teachers.

A new recruit makes up a quartet of men working in a south London nursery.

Ruskin House School, a family-run childcare business in Herne Hill, has had men on the staff for the past ten years.

For Howard Blackman, age 25, who started at the nursery earlier this month, it is his first job in childcare. He said, 'I love interacting with the children. They never fail to make me smile.'

A teenage would-be teaching assistant has added his voice to calls for more men to work in the early years sector.

Almost 40% of primary schools now have no male teachers on their staff. New figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show 1,238 of the state's 3,248 national schools have an all-female line-up in the classroom.

The revelation means that the Department of Education's expensive efforts to attract men into primary school teaching have been a failure so far. Many children are now educated exclusively by women as the teaching profession becomes increasingly feminised.

Men are making up ground on women when it comes to working with children, according to Kingston College.

The college has had more applications from blokes for its childcare courses than ever before.

Watch TV Interviews of five male teachers

More than a quarter of primary schools in England don't have a single male teacher.

Research shows men are important for building confidence and providing role models for children.

There are the same little wooden cubbyholes, small jackets and frayed scarves hanging from hooks that you find in any child-care centre.

The same book corner and tiny plastic couch. The same miniature chairs around miniature round tables.

What's most striking about Beatty Buddies Daycare is the men.

Big strapping men.

New Zealand children are disadvantaged by a lack of male early childhood teachers, a North Shore teacher says.

Adam Buckingham wants men to become early childhood teachers after learning that fewer than 2 percent of preschool teachers in New Zealand are men - the lowest rate in the world, he says.

A project in Scotland, aimed at recruiting young and unemployed men into the childcare sector, has received 50,000 pounds of funding to increase training opportunities.

The Coalfield Trust awarded the money to the Men into Childcare project, which aims to help young and unemployed men in former mining areas in East Ayrshire. The Trust was originally formed in 1999 to help mining communities recover from the impact of pit closures.

More than a quarter of England's primary schools do not have a single male teacher, it has emerged, with 4,587 school staffrooms populated solely by women.
 
The figures are despite a multi-million pound Government campaign to encourage men back into what is now seen as a "feminine" career.

The room was packed so full that they were standing at the back, but we were an orderly and attentive lot. "Hands up those of you who've been into a school recently," our facilitator requested. A good number of hands shot up. "Those of you who didn't put your hands up need to get into a school," she said with a stern look.

An Ipswich school is defying trends and putting men back in front of the class with more male teachers than women.

St Edmund's College has 33 male full-time teachers (57 per cent) and 25 female teachers (43 per cent) this year.

I'm in New Zealand right now getting ready for a presentation to the 4th Annual Men in Early Childhood Summit. I'm spending time with one of the guys, Robin Christie and his wife and kids I met in Belfast, Ireland - the World Forum.