More men training to be secondary teachers

The number of men studying to become secondary teachers at Massey University’s College of Education (CoE) has doubled providing an even split between men and women – an exciting development for a profession that has recently struggled to find gender balance in the classroom.

Overall CoE enrolments have increased by about a third this year.

Last year, a quarter of students enrolled in the university’s one-year Graduate Diploma of Teaching (Secondary) were male; this year the number has increased from 35, to 65 and they now make up half.

Programme co-ordinator Dr Peter Rawlins says the increase is very exciting and reflects a number of factors, including the international economic downturn and rising unemployment in NZ.

“Feedback we’ve had so far suggests that future job security is an influential factor in decision making,” Dr Rawlins says.

“The majority of students we’ve talked to say that teaching is something that they’ve thought about doing in the past, and they now feel that the time is right.”

He says the mix of age groups is as diverse as the subjects the students are choosing to specialise in.

“Some of our new students are switching from commercially-based careers to areas that involve people.

“Teaching offers stability, and the chance to give back.

“One might assume, for example, that people are flooding from trades into technology teaching, but this isn’t the case. There has been an increase right across the board in all subject areas, from a wide variety of backgrounds.”

In 2007, 15 of 158 education graduates were male, prompting education experts to call for urgent research into why men were not entering the teaching profession.

While the college had not specifically targeted male teachers during its recruitment campaign, it is delighted with the gender balance in one of its key programmes.

However, the number of men in primary teaching programmes remains about 12-15 per cent, much the same as previous years.