Sydney
1 Dec 2002
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St Cecilia’s children go ‘bush’ for the day
Radical bid for men-only teaching job offers
Crackerjack way to see charity in action
Destruction of human life for profit - research fear
Fr John says ‘thank you’ and ‘goodbye’
Real meaning of Christmas
Perth statue: Archbishop orders inquiry
... deported, then disappeared or dead
Avoid war at all costs: Caritas
Christmas Bowl gets helping hand from a Leunig angel
Govt bows to Church pressure
A walk against war
Persecution: UN should be forced to act
Casting a NET to reach young adults, older kids
Tom Singer, lost in a ‘coward’s war’
Asylum seeker kids allowed to attend Catholic school
Editorial: When aid is misused
Letters: Breadwinners?
Conversation: Terry Underwood, Ambassador, Year of the Outback
Reflections: US bishops pose questions on Iraq
Kids go ‘bush’ at St Cecilia’s to help drought victims
It’s ‘family first’ for SOS (son of Sergio)
Dad had to face racism on field
Retreat helps with the healing
Love of books pays off for coastal school
‘Greedy people’ let the needy go without
Third degree burns
Radical bid for men-only teaching job offers
By Chris Lindsay
The Catholic Education Office is asking for an exemption under anti-discrimination laws so it can attract more men into the primary school teaching ranks.
It wants to offer some primary teaching scholarships to male students only for the next five years to help increase the number of male teachers.
Other scholarships would still be available to female applicants.
The education office has applied to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission for an exemption to allow it offer the male-only scholarships.
The commission says it rarely grants exemptions and only does so in “exceptional” circumstances and where there is “clear justification”.
Br Kelvin Canavan, director of the Catholic Education Office, says the issue is that “males are rapidly disappearing” from Catholic primary schools.
“We need to increase the number of males going into teacher education programs,” he said.
“In some Catholic primary schools the entire staff is female.
“Boys, in particular, need some male teachers as role models as well as female teachers.”
The plan by the Catholic Education Office is to offer eight scholarships to male students in 2003.
Initially they will be offered to students in the outer suburbs of Sydney to cover teacher shortages in those areas.
The scholarships are part of a “longer term strategy to encourage males into primary teaching”.
Male teachers in Catholic primary schools in NSW and the ACT last year numbered only 937, compared with 4265 females - in all, only 18 per cent. In NSW schools alone, the proportion is only 14 per cent.
From 1991 to 2001 the number of female teachers in NSW Catholic primary schools rose by 106 to 6714, while the number of male teachers rose by only 46 from 1078 to 1124
And as the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission application points out, due to the over-representation of males in leadership positions in primary schools the proportion of male classroom teachers is actually lower than the percentage of males in the schools.
A 1999 report conducted by the Catholic Education Office and the Australian Catholic University says that enrolments of male primary teaching students at the university’s Strathfield campus had fallen to 10 per cent, compared with 21 per cent in 1993.
It says such a reduction in the number of males choosing primary teaching is a cause of concern to educational administrators and has wide-ranging educational and social ramifications.
The report argues that, for a range of reasons, including the potential impact of a more balanced teacher population on behavioural and learning difficulties for boys and on gender stereotypes, strategies need to be put in place to attempt to attract more males into the teaching profession at the primary level.
The depth of the problem of a lack of male teachers in Catholic primary schools hit home to Br Kelvin, a few weeks ago when he was visiting a Sydney primary school.
While he was addressing a year 2 class of seven-year-olds, a boy asked him: “Will you stay here and teach at this school?”
Before he could answer, another boy spoke up: “We only have two boy teachers at this school.”
Br Kelvin says: “The school would have about 400 students and a total staff of 25 to 30.
“It was a powerful reminder of how deep the problem is and what an effect it is having on these young students.”
He said older students at primary schools often spoke of their disappointment when the school lost a male teacher - particularly if he was the only one.