Desperately Seeking Male Child Care Workers {germany}

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-efforts-to-recruit-men-in-child-care-fall-short-a-854311.html



Guido Höper hasn't finished his vocational training yet, but the 24-year-old has already been inundated with job offers.

Höper likes to teach children how to "beatbox," or pretend to be human drum machines using their hands and mouths like hip-hop artists. The assistant social education worker takes his workshop from one children's day care center to the next in the German port city of Hamburg. But his skills don't just delight the children. The heads of these day care centers would also love to hire him, and not just for the unusual sounds he can produce.

"I'm valuable partly because I'm a man," he says. Though Höper is currently taking a break from his studies in social pedagogy, he hopes to earn his certification to be a child care worker soon. After all, he's already had three offers for full-time positions in recent months.

Male child care workers are probably the most highly sought-after professional group in Germany. Local authorities and private kindergarten operators are scrambling to attract the exotic teachers, staging special events at colleges, setting up information stands at job fairs and inventing all manner of grandiloquent catchphrases. A campaign in Stuttgart is called "Strong guys for strong kids," while day care operators in Hamburg are recruiting male staff under the slogan "Variety, man!" Beatboxer Höper is featured on one of the posters.