Status: 20.10.2022 08:31 a.m
After their first birthday in Germany, every child has a legal right to a childcare place. That’s the theory. According to the Bertelsmann Foundation, hundreds of thousands of children will not have a place in 2023.
In the coming year, there will be a shortage of almost 384,000 daycare places in Germany. That says a forecast by the Bertelsmann Foundation. However, there are significant differences between West and East Germany. In the west, there is likely to be a gap of up to 362,400 daycare places in 2023, while in the east there are only 21,200 according to the calculations.
There is a lack of staff
In order to meet the care needs of parents, an additional 93,700 professionals in the west and 4,900 in the east would have to be hired in addition to the existing staff, it said. That is a total of 4.3 billion euros in additional personnel costs per year. In addition, there would be operating and possible construction costs for day-care centers.
The analysis shows for almost all federal states that the demand from parents for daycare places is higher than the proportion of children who were in daycare last year. The greatest shortage is therefore in the most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 101,600 missing daycare places. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Thuringia, on the other hand, no expansion of the places is necessary.
Solution: reduce care times
According to the forecasts, there was a lack of around 250,300 day-care places for children under the age of three in western Germany, while in eastern Germany including Berlin there were around 20,700. For children from the age of three there are 112,100 places too few in the western German federal states, in the east there are only 500 places.
As a short-term solution, the study suggests reducing the childcare hours in order to make childcare available for more children. At the same time, a “fundamental determination of the core tasks of daycare centers” is needed, the foundation explained. It should be considered whether “individual tasks such as the documentation of educational processes or the implementation of tests can be restricted”.
Since 2013, there has been a legal entitlement to a daycare place for children from the age of one in Germany; for children from the age of three it has existed since 1996.
The Bertelsmann Foundation regularly conducts studies on educational and socio-political issues. The foundation holds a majority stake in the Bertelsmann media group.