In his TV review (Gareth Southgate: Changing the Game for Young Men review – boys are crying out for help like this, 8 June), Jack Seale astutely writes: “Every problem it identifies is the result of a big political choice, which Southgate ignores before offering a small-scale solution. It’s certainly well-meant, but its limitations are frustrating.”

Gareth Southgate’s commitment to the issue is admirable and entirely convincing. However, the fact that more boys own smartphones than live with their fathers – one of the statistics cited in Southgate’s documentary, which also featured in his Richard Dimbleby lecture last year – tell us remarkably little about either. Smartphones are close to ubiquitous among young people, while the reasons fathers may not reside with their children are complex and varied. Such comparisons reveal more about patterns of technology ownership than they do about the realities of fatherhood.

Indeed, this apolitical rhetoric risks obscuring the very issues it purports to illuminate. Those claiming to be concerned about absent fathers should be asking difficult questions about insecure work, housing, relationship breakdown, family courts and the changing nature of care. Reducing these realities to catchy contrasts may raise awareness, but it does little to move beyond the headlines.

Seale notes that the documentary features a young man from Middlesbrough volunteering on an environmental project. While generic benefits of making connections and building a CV are acknowledged, the intervention feels tokenistic, fleeting and somewhat arbitrary and I agree that this is a frustrating missed opportunity.

My own research with young men in the north-east demonstrates just how transformative environmental initiatives can be when they are rooted in place and sustained over time, providing gateways to pride, belonging and identity. Crucially, such programmes can also create pathways into paid employment. With sufficient time, training and trust, areas such as beekeeping and bike maintenance can generate income and employment opportunities.

Boys and young men deserve better than soundbites and symbolism. Their challenges are real and political. Precisely for that reason, they deserve a deeper understanding of the social and economic conditions shaping their lives.
Dr Michael Richardson
Senior lecturer in human geography, Newcastle University

The male role models missing from the lives of young men in Britain, as discussed by Gareth Southgate in his documentary, may be within reach. Last week, the Department for Education reported that the number of male teachers at state-funded schools in England fell for the first time this decade.

However, men who become teachers later in life, ie career changers, are bucking the trends of a lopsided education system that’s traditionally been dominated by women.

Since the pandemic, there’s been huge growth in the number of men aged over 40 entering initial teacher training in England – up 43%, that’s triple the growth of female trainees.

They are also the fastest growing group of applicants, but last year just one in five candidates was accepted on to a course, compared with half of all women.

At Now Teach, a charity that helps people change career to teaching, 53% of our new hires starting this September are men, in contrast to 33% of the national school intake. And 51% of our 1,500 strong network is male, compared with 24% nationally.

With an average age of 49, these converts bring decades of professional and lived experience as talented businessmen, engineers, entrepreneurs, managers and fathers, serving as inspiring role models to aspiring young minds.

We believe a dedicated support service is needed to nurture this green shoot amid a decade of missed teacher recruitment targets to ensure that young men get the role models they desperately need.

Funding for this work was unexpectedly axed by the previous UK government. We wholeheartedly back a targeted national recruitment campaign and stand ready to scale up our efforts to close the classroom gender gap.
Lucy Kellaway
Co-Founder, Now Teach