Early childhood studies is one of the most gender biased course in the State, says course director Dr Francis Douglas. The course, in UCC, still has to break the barriers down, as just two of the 50 students embarking on the course each year were male.

The subject of the three year degree course, which has been running since 1995, is the child from conception to the age of six, from different perspectives. The course could be described as one of the more age-friendly courses in the State. "We have 50 per cent put aside (for mature students), but what we have discovered is that of recent intakes, that has fallen from about 25 mature students to 15. We make up the difference with school leavers, so we keep the intake at 50," Douglas says.

Although there is a loss of about five or six students in first year, the course transfers up to 10 new students with certain qualifications into second year of the course. "For example, somebody with certain distinctions from the colleges of commerce would be eligible to skip first year and go straight into second year, hence we can recoup some of what we lost in first year by this process."

The course is unusual in that it is cross-faculty - the analytical as well as the arts faculty is involved. Four departments in UCC are involved in teaching it: education, applied social studies, paediatrics/child health and applied psychology.

In education, students study areas such as the history of early-years education in the State; the curriculum and early childhood psychology, which would be applied to instructing young children; and early educators like Froebel and Montessori. Applied social studies brings the role of women in society and work done on the family in Ireland to the students attention. They also study developmental psychology and child health. The students go to the hospital for some lectures.

The course is quite academic, Douglas says.. The points for the course started at 440 in 1995 and were 405 last year. Dr Douglas believes it will stay around the 400-mark. Students have to complete 60 credits per year - each five credits equals 24 hours of lectures. In second and third years, Douglas says, students have to jam this into half a year because of their work placements, so they are much busier.

There is a placement in the second half of second year as well as the first half of third year. The first placement has to be in child health or social work. The second one has to be in education and concerns the stimulation of the child - it could be in a pre-school or a creche. For their placements most students opt to stay near home. Others, Douglas says, have gone to far-flung places such as South America and India. "They come back with reflective portfolios, which are full of the most fascinating things about young children in those countries."

So far there have been three lots of graduates since the course started and the ones who achieved first and upper seconds have been attracted into postgraduate study. Quite a few graduates of the course are fully qualified primary teachers because they got into the colleges of education through the graduate-entry route. Others have taken a transfer course and are moving into social work. Some have got into nursing, with the view to becoming paediatric nurses.

The growth in the childcare area, Douglas says, is due in part to the implementation of the 1991 Childcare Act, whereby the health boards have to take responsibility for pre-schools in their area and the administration surrounding it.

"There is a further expansion coming. That's to do with the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, which at the moment is looking into training in the EU childcare sector. They are going to create a new profession." Douglas believes a lot of his graduates could end up as lecturers on courses that will be brought in to train these people.