It wasn't unexpected news ... but a little disturbing nonetheless. Education ministry figures just released show fewer teachers are men than ever before. Now just 28 per cent of teachers are male and in primary schools it's less than one in five.
Allegations of sexual misdemeanour - real or imagined - are considered one reason behind men turning their backs on the teaching profession. Of course, in the early childhood sector, the number of men drops to just 3 per cent of total staff.
I recall a male friend who ran a very successful - and very good - pre-school but stayed in the office all day and would not venture near the kids. He would never dare comfort a hurt, sick or upset child, knowing that the merest hint of something inappropriate could destroy his reputation - and his livelihood. Sadly, we live in such a world. We also live in a world increasingly inhabited by solo mums and boys growing up in homes without a male role model. Male teachers can be a boon to these kids - we need more of them.
As Principals' Federation president Phil Harding commented on boys living without fathers in their lives: "We see the fallout from that with boys that have lost their way, are desperately unhappy, and don't feel like they can talk about it with mum. So that all gets bottled up and rebounds in the playground in anger."
There's another reason why we need more men in the classroom. The feminisation of education has seen girls increasingly outstrip boys in terms of achievement - and it's not all down to the earlier development of those parts of the brain that deal with reading and writing. Sometimes it takes a man to realise what a boy has to offer and to bring it out of him. Unfortunately, the ministry has no plans to address this imbalance. A shame - here's rare good case for some positive discrimination.
