Sir is back! Surge in men training to teach children in primaries as number increases by 50 per cent in four years

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Sir is back! Surge in men training to teach children in primaries as number increases by 50 per cent in four years

July 16th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

By
Sarah Harris

PUBLISHED:

18:00 EST, 15 July 2012

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UPDATED:

18:00 EST, 15 July 2012

For generations, female teachers have dominated primary schools – but now it appears that men are making a comeback.

The number of male trainee primary teachers has increased by 51 per cent in the last four years and at five times the rate of women.

According to statistics from the Teaching Agency (TA), a division of the Department for Education, 3,743 men embarked on training in 2011/12 compared with 2,467 in 2008/9.

Please sir! The number of male trainee primary teachers has increased by 51 per cent in the last four years

They made up 19 per cent of trainees embarking on all routes into primary teaching in 2011/12 compared with 15 per cent in 2008/9.

Experts say that men are increasingly attracted to employment-based initial teacher training (EBITT) which allows them to earn a salary as they train on the job instead of studying for a traditional university PGCE course.

However many continue to be deterred by child safety issues around teaching young pupils and the thought of being the only man in a female staff room.

Figures released last year by the Department for Education showed that a quarter of primary schools do not have a single male teacher.

Staffrooms in 4,278 of the 16,971 primaries in England are solely populated by women.

There are only 25,500 men teaching young children, compared with 139,500 women, according to the DfE statistics.

Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said the TA figures were a ‘welcome increase from a very low base’.

He said: ‘They’re still a very small percentage and that means that children can grow up feeling that schools are for sissies.

‘The expansion of school-led training will help to bring in more males as they often think about becoming primary school teachers later in life when they’ve had experience of other jobs and perhaps had children of their own.’

But he added that some male graduates can feel ‘intimidated’ by all-female schools as ‘female teachers haven’t necessarily always been welcoming to men’.

The TA is launching two new services to boost numbers of men in primary schools.

The Primary Experience programme will be available to male graduates from this autumn who register their interest in primary teacher training with the TA.

It gives men ten days’ work experience in a school before they start initial teacher training in 2013. The TA is also putting male graduates in touch with a range of ‘inspirational male primary teachers’.

Lin Hinnigan, TA interim chief executive, admitted there was still a ‘long way to go’.

She said: ‘It’s partly that other men don’t do it and you think you will be in an entirely female staffroom. Also, looking after young children, traditionally, has been seen as a job for women. It’s trying to break through that.’

She added: ‘We do tend to find, anecdotally, that schools that have one or two men start to grow.’

A study suggested in February that schools need more male teachers because boys make less effort in women’s classes.

MPs warned earlier this month that boys are falling behind in reading at an early age because of a lack of male primary school teachers.