While working with young children has its fair share of challenges, dealing with people’s reactions to his choice of career is proving to be the hardest feat for kindergarten assistant Luke Agius.

Mr Agius is one of only three men who work as kindergarten assistants, a role that, for years, has been dominated by women.

“Most people still link one’s choice of career with one’s gender. There is this mentality that because someone is male or female, then they should not be doing certain jobs,” Mr Agius, who has been working as a kindergarten assistant for the past three years, told this newspaper.

From a young age, Mr Agius, who is also a musician, knew he wanted to work with children, especially younger ones, hoping to instil in them the same passion for the arts he has. Yet, although he has completed all the courses and teaching practice sessions as his female counterparts, Mr Agius admits parents are not always happy when they learn their children will be under his supervision.

“It’s all because of this common mis­conception that men, or women, for that matter, cannot do certain jobs,” he said, adding that, despite loving what he did, there had been times when he thought about a career change.

He insisted that, while such ideas seemed to be widespread throughout society, it was only the adults who appeared to be affected by such a mentality.

“For the kids, it makes no difference. They don’t care whether their teacher is a man or a woman. It’s the adults who bother with this sort of thing,” he said, pointing out that he never had any sort of problems with students.

Mr Agius admitted he was too passionate about his job to give up just yet, adding he often tried to encourage other men to take up such roles because he was sure that would benefit the whole system.

While there have been efforts to address gender imbalance in the past years, the issue is still prevalent in a number of areas, mainly the workforce.

Figures issued by the National Statistics Office recently showed that, while there were 1,051 women enrolled in education courses at tertiary level, the figure plummeted to 260 for men. While there were 1,686 females opting to follow courses in health and welfare, males amounted to 810.

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