Tauranga is playing host to a summit which focusses on encouraging more men to consider a career in early childhood education.

The tenth annual EC-MENz summit which is taking place at the Bethlehem Teaching Institute this Friday and Saturday, April 8-9.

Bethlehem Teaching Institute teacher educator and EC-MENz member Phillip Ozanne. This weekend EC-MENz is holding its 10th annual summit at the institute this weekend. Photo: Tracy Hardy

Founded in 2007, EC-MENz is a network of men and women dedicated to highlighting the important roles men play in New Zealand's early childhood education sector.

Summit organiser Phillip Ozanne says the group is a volunteer run organisation that aims to promote early childhood education as a great career choice for men as well as supporting male teachers working in the sector.

'There's roughly about 16 men currently working in early childhood education here in the Bay of Plenty which is quite high compared to other regions,” he says.

'The key focus of the summit for us is providing our members as well as other early childhood educators an opportunity for networking and a bit of professional development as well.”

The summit will kick off on Friday at 4pm with registrations, a meet and greet and the EC-MENz' AGM.

While Saturday will feature international keynote speakers Craig d'Arcy from the Australian National Males in Early Childhood Network and MENtor coordinator Martyn Mills-Bayne who is based at the University of South Australia.

Also speaking at the summit will be Waikato University researcher Maggie Lyall and members of the Bay of Plenty Polytech's Early Childhood Education Centre, says Phillip.

'Craig will be discussing the innovations taking place over in Australia to increase male participation in ECE, while Martyn will cover the group he works with which is similar to Ec Menz.

'While Maggie will be sharing her research on gender in early childhood education and the polytech staff will discuss the feedback on their virtues based programme which supports children's transition from ECE to school.”

To finish off the day, a panel of four including Phillip will be fielding questions from participants.

Then on Sunday an optional visit to two centres will be offered to participants to allow them to check out the facilities, learn what their all about and how the centres are run.

'The Saturday is really the key day as they'll be a lot of professional development on how to encourage men to participate.

So if you want to know how to encourage males to be working within early childhood then come along and her these people.T he summit is open to everyone to attend, both men and women,” says Phillip.

The EC-MENz annual summit takes place at Bethlehem Teaching Institute on Elder Lane on Friday, from 4pm, and on Saturday, from 9am to 4.15pm. For more information visit: www.ecmenz.org.nz