The Government hopes to recruit an additional 17,000 childcare workers, but research has shown there is a chronic shortage of men working in the area. Marese McDonaghreports
He may not be one in a million but Paul Conlon is definitely a rare breed. The 32-year-old Sligo man is a qualified accountant whose career path took an unexpected turn after college when he spotted a vacancy for a job working with young children in an after-school project.
As the Government grapples with the thorny issue of childcare, experts are asking why, when a massive shortage of qualified childcare staff is looming, does half the population consider this career as a no-go area.
Research carried out by State agency Pobal found that the proportion of men working in childcare had shrunk from an already derisory 1.5 per cent in 2004 to 0.4 per cent in 2005.
A specialist in childcare education has warned that young children are being denied access to positive male role models because so few men work in childcare or as primary school teachers.
Doireann O'Connor, chairwoman of the newly established Early Childhood Care and Education honours degree programme in Sligo Institute of Technology - where all 51 students are female - is urging more young men to consider a career in this area.
"It is essential that young men should consider childcare as a career option. Because of the limited number of men working in both early childhood services and also primary schools, young children are not getting equal access to positive male role models," she says.
With the Government hoping to recruit an additional 17,000 childcare workers under its National Childcare Investment Plan 2006-2010, O'Connor warns that "a massive shortage" of highly trained childcare workers is pending.
One parents' support group who welcomes the call for more men to be involved in childcare and primary education says "PC madness" is frightening men away from the caring professions.
"This has been a problem for many years and now possibly because of the perceptions of men themselves," says Elizabeth Quinn of the National Association for Parents' Support. She says that while it is her experience that parents do not object to young male volunteers working with children, men themselves are terrified that they are leaving themselves open to accusations of abuse if they work with children.
She agrees "totally and absolutely" that there should be more men working in the childcare area. "We deal with a lot of single-parent families and there could be three generations now without any male role models.
"How on earth are boys supposed to learn how to be a man in these circumstances?"
The research carried out by Pobal, which manages childcare programmes on behalf of the office of the Minister for Children, suggests there is a cultural bias against men becoming involved in the caring professions.
In a survey of more than 1,200 community-based and privately owned creches, playgroups and other childcare facilities, it found that although the number of female staff has soared in line with demand, this has not been the case with male staff.
Researchers also found that fewer than one-third of the facilities surveyed actively tried to recruit men with many making the point that they do not positively discriminate in favour of any group. Asked about the barriers to the recruitment of men, the majority said men simply did not apply for jobs while many respondents pointed out that because men don't opt for childcare training they are not qualified for the jobs.
Other factors listed were low wages, parents' reluctance to have men caring for their small children, the perception that it is a female job and the fear of false accusations.
Conlon says this fear is in the back of every man's mind when he works in this area "but if you go around every day worrying about it you could not do your job properly".
He has three part-time childcare jobs, one in a homework club supported by Sligo Social Services, another in a youth club in Forthill, Sligo and the third with a school- completion project where he works with up to 14 primary school children considered at risk of dropping out of school early.
"Seven staff are attached to the homework club and the others are all women," he says. "I don't think the kids particularly notice your gender or care about it. They just care about if they can trust you."
He believes there has been a cultural resistance to men working in the so-called caring professions. "There is a stigma there. It's not considered a man's job or very macho but any man I know working in the area loves it. I was the same myself. Men will consider engineering or carpentry or accountancy but most will not think of nursing or childcare." It slowly dawned on him in the final year of college that accountancy was not the job for him.
O'Connor has no doubt the Government is committed to expanding the childcare services and Minister for Children Brian Lenihan has stressed that proper training will be a central plank of that strategy.
But O'Connor points out that as demand grows for more quality services there are still less than half a dozen degree courses in the Republic."It is now national policy to train childcare professionals to a variety of levels, including degree level, and there will be a lot of developments in childcare coming from the county childcare committees. But while there is going to be a massive growth in childcare services, there will be a major shortage of highly trained childcare professionals."
She says it is vital that mature workers in the childcare sector get the opportunity to secure higher qualifications to match their work experience while it is also important to make childcare an attractive option for those considering a career change.