27,000 signatures from daycare centers
Educators raise the alarm: emergency like never before
24.05.2024, 12:25
Daycare workers complain that thousands of positions have not been filled for years. Tens of thousands of employees are demanding more staff in an open letter. If something is not done quickly, “everything will collapse.”
More than 27,000 daycare workers nationwide have written an open letter calling for relief in the upbringing, education and care of children. “There has never been such a long-lasting emergency situation – it is getting worse from week to week. If something doesn’t happen soon, everything will collapse,” stressed Martina Meyer, chairwoman of the Verdi Federal Specialist Group for Education, Training and Social Work. Thousands of positions have been unfilled for years.
The employees are demanding more staff for kitchen, housework and administration in order to relieve the burden on the teaching staff. The staffing ratio in the teaching area must also be improved, the groups must not be enlarged any further and a step-by-step plan must be developed to build up the specialist staff.
The federal government must provide long-term financial support to daycare centers and work with the states to plan the expansion of the daycare system in line with parents’ needs. The union is proposing a nationwide daycare summit with the federal and state governments.
Trade union representatives handed over the “collective danger report” with the signatures and demands to Bremen’s Senator for Education, Sascha Karolin Aulepp, at the Youth and Family Ministers’ Conference (JFMK). The topic of expanding daycare centers and recruiting skilled workers in this area played an important role in the two-day conference with the relevant ministers of the federal states, chaired by Bremen.