Network Whispers - Nick Gibb, mobilisation and men

COWED? Erstwhile NW columnist and early years supremo Sue Cowley called out early years minister Nick Gibb, who has spoken about the importance of children learning languages, as a ‘hypocrite’. She tweeted she was ‘furious’ he voted against plans to keep the EU’s Erasmus programme, which helps university language students studying abroad, adding ‘the hypocrisy is astonishing’. Mr Gibb has previously said, ‘Ensuring more young people learn a foreign language helps to broaden their horizons and ambitions as well as ensuring this country remains an outward-looking global nation.’

THE WRIGHT STUFF The campaign to ‘save the sector’ has taken on a new urgency with the 6.2per cent wage hike this spring. Following the full-page advert in The Times (paid for by 360 settings and costing £25k) calling for honesty about the Government’s use of the word ‘free’, David Wright, one of the signatories, wrote ‘we have between now and April to save our sector’. ‘Now is the time to mobilise,’ he said, ‘as the new Government takes up position, assuming that we will all meekly and gratefully accept the meagre £66 million offered as an increase to funding, set against minimum wage and other costs. We will not survive. Let’s make a nuisance of ourselves to every newly elected MP so that we are top of their inbox.’

CARING PROFESSION An oft-cited reason why more men don’t work in the early years is the pay. But according to early research findings from EU-funded GenderEYE, some men, who are now qualifying as better-paid primary school teachers and going on to take up positions in early years settings, are accepting less pay in exchange for greater job satisfaction. ‘When discussing men’s early years careers and educational training, we need to consider more broadly their trajectories within caring work,’ say Joann Wilkinson and Jeremy Davies, who both work on the project.