A new law is intended to improve the quality of German daycare centers. The majority of the Bundestag gave the green light to this late on Thursday evening. The new law is scheduled to come into force on January 1, 2025. Essentially, it stipulates that the states should each receive around two billion euros from the federal government in the next two years to improve the care offering at daycare centers.
The focus should be on more positions for educators, especially in West Germany. According to calculations by experts at TU Dortmund University alone, there will be a staffing gap of up to 90,000 skilled workers in daycare centers by 2030. In eastern German federal states, however, there could even be an oversupply of staff due to the declining number of children.
According to the lead family ministry, federal funds could be used to retain existing staff and invest in quality improvements. According to the law, federal funds are also available for the areas of food, exercise, language development and day care. In addition to the main concern of recruiting personnel, they are defined as central “fields of action”.
Will daycare fees increase?
What else is changing: Unlike before, the states will no longer be allowed to use federal funds to reduce daycare fees. A transition period applies until the end of 2025. However, the federal states are free to use their own resources to reduce contributions in the future, emphasized Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens): “The federal states can continue to invest additionally in child day care.” The Family Minister therefore does not assume that that daycare contributions will increase as a result of the new law. She is pleased that “despite tight budgets” the states have managed to continue to provide billions in funding for daycare centers.
At the same time, Paus indicated that the law could not yet achieve equivalent quality standards at all daycare centers – also because of different initial requirements in the states. But these are the aim, said Paus. The focus is now on attracting and retaining skilled workers. “Because this is what makes or breaks the reliability of daycare centers for children and families.”