In March this year, a Men in Early Child Care and Teaching summit brought together advocates for increasing the number of men in early childhood sector. Researcher Sarah Farquhar, of Childforum Research www.childforum.com outlined to the conference some of the arguments as to why we need more men in the workforce teaching and caring for children in these formative years.
First, she argues, society has moved on and men are now more actively engaged in caring for their children with an increasing number taking over as the main caregiver as their partners choose to work fulltime.
The absence of men in early childhood centres also means young children may be missing out on any substantial contact with male role models. For children in single parent families, that could mean they have virtually no contact with men at all.
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