“The situation is intolerable”
Bertelsmann study: Things are really that bad for daycare centers
© Andrey Kuzmin / Adobe Stock
Around 400,000 daycare places are missing and the poor childcare ratio endangers the educational mission. A reduction in opening times is now being discussed in order to get out of the daycare crisis.
Many parents and educators have been feeling it for a long time – the situation in daycare centers is tense, to put it mildly. A new study confirms this impression. The Bertelsmann Foundation has published its “Country Monitoring for Early Childhood Education”. “The situation has become intolerable for children and parents as well as for the existing staff,” says Anette Stein, an expert at the Foundation for Early Childhood Education. “The shortage of skilled workers is making it increasingly difficult to fulfill legal requirements and implement the educational mandate in daycare centers.”
For ten years now, parents in Germany have had a legal right to care for their child as soon as it turns one year old. Unfortunately only in theory. According to the current Bertelsmann study, the situation in the western German states is particularly problematic – there is a lack of 385,900 daycare places there, and in eastern Germany there are 44,700.
Delicate care key in the daycare centers
However, things are not looking rosy in the eastern German states either. The care ratio there is far behind the scientific recommendations: 90 percent of the children are looked after in daycare groups with too few staff; in West Germany this affects 60 percent of the children. Both are alarming numbers.
Not only because the educational mission can only be carried out to a limited extent under these conditions, but also because safe supervision can hardly be guaranteed in groups that are too large. In eastern Germany, a single full-time specialist is responsible for 5.4 small children or 10.5 children over the age of three. The recommended staffing ratio is 3 small children or 7.5 children over 3 years old per specialist.
Skilled labor shortage as the cause of the daycare crisis
The Bertelsmann study cites the shortage of skilled workers as the reason for the misery. Although the expansion of the daycare center has been pushed forward in recent years, the need has also increased. More and more parents want care for younger children too.
In fact, a previous study by the Cologne Institute for German Economics (IW) showed that two-thirds of two-year-olds in Germany currently have a childcare place, but around 80 percent of all parents would like to use one – if they were given the opportunity. “In 2023, parents would like institutional care for around 1.16 million children under three,” wrote study author Wido Geis-Thöne. “But only 857,000 children actually have a place.”
Geis-Thöne does not assume that the situation could ease noticeably, despite the falling birth rate. He also sees the severe shortage of skilled workers as the main problem. According to the IW study, around 30,000 educator positions were open in 2022, of which a full 22,000 remained unfilled.
Reduced opening times as a way out of the daycare crisis?
“Although the problem has been known for many years and parents have had a legal right to a childcare place for ten years now, the situation is still precarious,” said Geis-Thöne from the German Economic Institute. “Politicians urgently need to make adjustments, make the teaching profession more attractive and consistently expand daycare centers.”
The current Bertelsmann study calls on the federal government to “reliably participate in the financing of early childhood education beyond the benefits of the Kita Quality Act.” The following immediate measures are also recommended: relieving the teaching staff of administrative and housekeeping tasks and hiring career changers. However, education expert Stein admits: “There should be no compromises on educational qualifications at any level. Otherwise the quality of education will suffer.”
The proposals also include a reduction in daycare opening times by 2025, at least in some federal states. “This is undoubtedly a drastic measure that should only be taken individually and in close coordination between the municipality, the provider and parents,” says Stein. “But the daycare crisis has progressed to such an extent that new answers are needed.”
Most of the places are missing in these federal states
As the IW study already showed, the gaps vary in size depending on the federal state. In the West, the desire for care for children under three is traditionally less pronounced; in the East, the level of development is much more advanced. According to IW, the federal states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Thuringia and Brandenburg are the leaders in caring for one- and two-year-old children. Here, around 90 percent of two-year-olds were cared for by daycare centers or childminders, and between 68 and 76 percent of one-year-old children.
The largest gaps in care are in Bremen and Saarland. In absolute terms, however, most of the places in populous North Rhine-Westphalia were missing, namely a total of 87,400.
Sources used: iwkoeln.de, zeit.de, tagesschau.de, bertelsmann-stiftung.de
This article originally appeared on PARENTS.