Kagola, a lecturer in early childhood education (ECD) in Nelson Mandela University’s education faculty, aims to disrupt the impression that the sector is predominantly for women educators, but is still battling that stereotype after a decade working in it.
When he first started studying, says Kagola, he had to continually justify why he could teach young children, despite being male.
“The (question) of my gender always popped up. (When) I was a lecturer at a TVET college in Mafikeng, one module covered nutrition from birth to six years. I was told that I couldn’t teach that, as I was male.”
Kagola convinced his peers otherwise, and then his classrooms. “I taught a class of 35 students – mostly rural women in their thirties – who were rigid in their thinking about ECD being women’s work.”
Doggedly determined to specialise in the field, he became a member of the national marking team which taught ECD practitioners, or Educare.
Kagola understands the importance of a role model. His grandmother nurtured him, as well as eight other children, in their modest dwelling in Wolmaranstad in the North-West. Early education, he says, can help fill the gap when a role model is missing at home.
He wants society to rethink the positioning of men (by creating) alternative realities of what it is to be a man. His aim is to make a contribution: “I can be a role model. Many children grow up without a father. So did I.”
In a 2012 academic paper, Kagola and co-author Mathabo Khau showed how visual representations could be used to change perceptions of male teachers in the Foundation Phase in the Nelson Mandela metropole.
The study, ‘Using Collages to Change School Governing Body Perceptions of Male Foundation Phase Teachers’, recommended that participatory visual methodologies be used in “courageous conversations” with communities, exploring the construction of “caring masculinities” and involvement of men in care professions.
“The effort to recruit and retain male Foundation Phase teachers is a global phenomenon,” Kagola says. In Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, strategies include bursaries and awareness campaigns to bring more male teachers into early childhood education.
Despite initiatives to recruit men to teach Foundation Phase, there has been no significant improvement in South Africa, he says. The sector is still female dominated, with only 22.7 per cent being male, according to a 2015 survey.
For Kagola, the privilege of watching a child grow in education is profound.
“In January, a child could not hold a pen or read a sentence, but by the end of the semester, they could take care of themselves.”
He also applies a holistic approach to teaching. For example, he points out, slower learners may have been negatively affected by family dynamics so, rather than labelling them, more care should be taken to define the root of the problem.
True teachers, regardless of gender, are vital in the early stages of education, he believes. “Society needs to rethink the concept of work. There are male Foundation Phase teachers in the system who are thriving – and they are not planning on leaving.”