05 April 2005 - Women pushed into segregated employment Young women and girls are being “pushed” into jobs thought of as traditional to their sex, a new Equal Opportunities Commission report claims. Young people were actively discouraged from pursuing jobs outside the ‘norm’ for their gender, a study by the Equal Opportunities Commission said. The report asserts that tackling occupational segregation needs to be put at the heart of the government's strategy to raise skills and productivity. Girls from lower social groups were denied access to careers advice, work experience and training. The report also found that most girls and boys had shown an interest in learning a "non-traditional job", an interesting finding for the childcare sector interested in attracting and retaining male workers in the sector. One in four boys expressed an interest in care work, while one in eight girls were keen to work in the construction industry. The study included 1,100 adults, 90,000 youngsters who had been on work experience, 1,200 children aged 14 and 140 employers. The EOC found just 1% of construction workers are female and 2% of childcare workers are men. And it said only a sixth of young people received advice on work experience in areas dominated by the other sex. Last year just 22 young women in England took up plumbing apprenticeships compared with more than 3,000 young men. However, women are still dominating areas such as cleaning, catering and clerical work. Women said they would have considered other careers if they had known jobs normally filled by women were lower paid. Women who went on to higher education had more chance of finding better paid jobs in professions like medicine or law, the report said. EOC chair Julie Mellor said Britain could not go on "letting young people down". "The choices they make at an early age affect their whole lives and the economy suffers if employers can't get the right mix of skills and talents," she said. The findings demonstrated the importance of removing the barriers facing young people and potential employers, she added. "Tackling occupational segregation needs to be put at the heart of the government's strategy to raise skills and productivity." And, the report said, employers were now keen to recruit both men and women because of a national shortage of skilled workers. 05 April 2005 - NUT concerns on ‘educare’ The biggest teachers' union says it is worried by plans for more centres for children aged under four in England, especially those based on schools. Leaders of the National Union of Teachers support the idea of offering a range of services in disadvantaged areas. But they say the government's plan raises issues of staffing and funding. Some delegates at the union's annual conference suspect the whole ‘educare’ scheme is "a ruse" aimed at having more lower paid, less well qualified staff. The conference, in Gateshead, debated a resolution from the union's national executive which calls for education rather than childcare to be the priority in early years centres. It agrees with the government that research suggests good quality early education can lead to better attainment for children in their later schooling, especially those from poor homes. But the NUT leadership says that if the government is serious about seeing this happen it must "prioritise high quality early years education" - and invest more. It opposes replacing the 12 and a half hours a week of free nursery education to which children aged three and four are entitled with ‘educare’. It says having childcare outside normal school hours can be valuable - to pupils and their parents. But this raises questions about staffing levels, health and safety, funding, pay and conditions. It seeks to ensure that education and care are provided by "trained and experienced professionals and support staff". And it wants schools themselves to be free to decide whether they can develop out-of-hours services.