Male Participation in Early Childhood Education (By Ignatius Moses)

Establishing oneself in a specific career begins with one enrolling for training in an institution of higher learning. Career development is a life-long process that should be given a careful thought and adequately planned for. If well thought of, it should provide meaningful, productive and satisfying quality career choices. Career decision making is a complex process affected by various factors that come into interplay in one’s own life (Brown and Brooks, 2002).

ECE is one of the courses one may choose to pursue. However as a career, it has been highly engendered. According to Mukuna, E and Mutsotso, N. (2011), gender imbalance in the pre-school teaching profession has been a common practice globally. An Australian College of Educators’ National Survey of the Teachers’ Workforce for example, found that two thirds of all the school teachers to comprise females with men preferring managerial positions. Consistently, Australian College of Educators, (2001) found that male ECE teachers expressed greater desire to apply for managerial positions rather than classroom teaching.

In Kenya, the situation hasn’t been different. Several researchers have identified high gender disparity as far as early childhood service delivery is concerned. Waithaka (2002) in her study among schools in Thika District established that out of a total of 166 pre-school teachers, only one was male. Gakii (2004) in a study conducted at Miriga Mieru division of Meru County found that out of 475 pre-school teachers in the division only two were male. In Nairobi, Kivuva (1996) reveals that of all preschool teachers, 94.6% were female, while 5.4% were male. This information shows the extent to which early childhood education has been engendered not just in Kenya but in the entire world as well.

Several factors and stereotypes hinder men’s participation in ECE. Many feminist scholars insist that there are no natural differences between men and women, and that sex discrimination is the primary reason for differences between men and women in ECE labour market outcomes (Bryson, 1992; Phillips, 2004).

On their part, MacNaughton and Newton, (2001) argue that the effects of increasing male participation in children’s services workforce could be problematic, especially if the presence of men perpetuated traditional gender roles and stereotypes.

The argument of many is that additional men in the field would do more harm than good by denying female workers opportunities to advance in managerial and other senior positions. Others according to Cameron (2001) contend that since males are more likely to be sexual predators of young children than females, they could be restricted in their duties because of the heightened regulations on them. Carrington (2002) was highly concerned by the fact that despite playing the same role of a teacher, men are under more pressure to act differently when handling children.

Males too have had a fair share towards this disparity. On this, Ghorbani (2008) found that men had unrealistic salary expectations during their first year of teaching. As a result of this unrealistic expectation, they place a lot of importance on the amount of money to be earned when making a choice regarding a job to undertake as well as job satisfaction.

High salaries, according to Ghorbani, tempt men to administrative and managerial positions in certain schools. To a worse extent, men may even quit teaching jobs all together in search of better paying jobs. Macharia, (2011) found out that gender disparities in career choice results from cultural beliefs, upbringing factors and support an individual receives from the society that usually have gender as the main factor. The perception the society has pertaining to gender and career plays a major role in individual’s career choice. For instance, in most cultures ECE in particular is regarded as a female career. Karanja (2009) shares the same sentiments. In her study, Karanja found out that the high gender disparity in preschools among teachers is brought about by the fact that parents prefer taking their children to schools with female teachers. The argument behind this is that the society considers female teachers to be well positioned to take care of young ones since it is their natural role. This locks men out of employment in this sector. Neugebauer, (1999), Cunningham and Dorsey (2004), agree on this, and add that many people in and out of the early childhood sector believe that women are naturally predisposed to caring for young children whereas men are not. This is due to the fact that, in most cultures, the responsibility of bringing up children is bestowed on women both at home and in other environs (Koech, 2010). With such perception from the society, few men will be willing to risk pursuing a career in ECE.

Parents too have played their part as far as engendering ECE is concerned. Their unsympathetic attitudes towards males not only impact on recruitment but also on their retention. On recruitment, parents will emphasise on the institution employing female teachers as opposed to their counterparts. In addition their pressure towards school administration requiring them employ females would see many males lose their job or quit voluntarily quit. This has seen some males, even though willing to be part of workforce, denied an opportunity to work.

Even with these challenges, the need for male role models cannot be disputed as agreed by Nelson and Ruddock, (2004), who contend that lack of these models has a detrimental impact on the education of the boy child.

Despite the challenges noted above, there is an emergent trend in Kenya of men training as professionals in Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) though they are underrepresented in ECE workforce.