Monday 3 November 2008

Not enough men?

On TV One this morning they discussed the lack of men in pre and primary teaching. The question was posed (but not discussed, they got completely off the point) of weather scholarships for men would help rectify this situation. Another question that came up was is it legal (human rights) to offer just to men?

As a male primary school teacher who has just been through three years study and looked at scholarships along the way, I can say that there are no scholarships out there for men. I think stating human rights, because a scholarship targets just men is a cop-out. Scholarships are a business transaction aimed at filling a need. Do we ignore the need just to be politically correct? It seems to me there are many scholarships aimed at other minority groups, and as men in primary teaching we certainly are a minority.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Shaun
    Just reading your blog, some interesting things. I agree that there aren't enough men in teaching, but there aren't any scholarships for white females either so this would make it a little unfair to some extent. But if thats what it took to get more males then maybe!!

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  2. That is very true, and thank you for reminding me. I wonder if it would be illegal to offer just to men, although there are scholarships specifically for Maori that excludes others, so I am not really sure how that works.

    I would think it would take a lot more than scholarships to get more men into primary teaching. I think the problem stems from a societies attitudes and how we classify/view ourselves 'as men'.

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