Closed, shortened opening hours, large groups: this is everyday day-care for many families. There is a lack of care places and staff. Many federal states want to tackle the problem with career changers – including Brandenburg.
Not every activity in a day-care center has to be carried out by educators who have been trained for many years – this is how Brandenburg Minister of Education Steffen Freiberg justifies his plan to also open day-care centers for career changers. This is already common practice in schools.
In future, according to the SPD politician’s plans, it should be possible to fill up to every fifth position with a so-called “supplementary worker”. She could then work with the children under supervision, provided she has a professional qualification and has completed a minimum of 300 hours of pedagogical qualification.
So far, this has only been possible in Brandenburg with exceptional regulations that are difficult to obtain. The proposal is part of the ministry’s reform plan to address staff shortages – and has been the subject of much discussion since it was published in early August.
GEW feared deprofessionalization
The Education and Science Union (GEW) estimates that there is currently an acute need for 3,000 to 4,000 skilled workers in daycare centers in Brandenburg. However, the union also fears for the level of daycare care if future career changers can come from different professional fields.
The GEW regional chairman Günther Fuchs says: “If it were an additional offer, then it would make sense. But in the future up to 20 percent of the positions should be allowed to be filled by unqualified staff. That is a serious intervention in the quality of the daycare centers. ” If there are career changers, then they would have to be paid the same as all other educators and trained to be such on the job, according to the trade unionist.
Day care providers welcome reform plans
The municipal umbrella organizations in Brandenburg, which represent the majority of daycare providers with municipalities and districts, support the proposals and at the same time emphasize that supplementary workers must also be adequately qualified for educational work in daycare centers. The ministry is finally taking up long-standing demands for a liberalization of access to employment in the day-care centers, says Jens Graf, state manager of the Association of Towns and Municipalities.
Fröbel eV, an independent provider of day-care centers, crèches and after-school clubs, maintains 224 facilities nationwide, 45 of them in Brandenburg. According to Froebel, 301 of the 4,100 positions for pedagogical specialists nationwide are currently vacant. In order to find staff for the day-care centers given the current challenges, it is necessary to take a different approach, says Fröbel spokesman Michael Kuhl. He welcomes the fact that Brandenburg also wants to do this.
It is important that additional burdens for the providers in the educational training and further education of career changers are also refinanced. Experiences in other federal states have shown this.
Common in other states
Career changers in day-care centers are commonplace in other federal states – especially in the west. For example in Bavaria: According to a recent study commissioned by the Ministry for Family Affairs, there is a lack of around 14,400 specialists and supplementary workers in the crèches and day-care centers. Depending on immigration, demand could increase by around 2,000 to 5,200 employees by 2029.
The Bavarians are trying to close this gap and rely on practice-integrated training and further education. For pragmatic reasons, they have also opened it up to career changers – unlike in Thuringia or Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, for example, where a nursing professional qualification is an admission requirement.
In this way, career changers learn part-time, are paid and can be trained modularly from an assistant to a supplementary worker or specialist. However, institutions such as Fröbel eV do not see this as a substitute for fully trained specialists. These would be the most likely to identify the exact needs of the children. The career changers are also only a limited relief during the training, since they would also bind the educators who have to instruct them.
Who works in day care centers
As of March 2022, around 681,000 people were working in day care. The proportion of male daycare teachers in Germany has almost doubled in recent years, as reported by the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden. In 2012, the statistics still showed 4.1 percent men – by 2022 the proportion of male daycare workers had grown to 7.9 percent.
The Federal Office expects a further increase in the proportion of men. The numbers are relatively high, especially among younger employees: last year, 12.6 percent of educational daycare workers under the age of 30 were male. In contrast, the figure for employees aged 50 and over was 2.8 percent. The proportion of men among employees under the age of 20 was highest at 17.9 percent, and lowest among those aged 60 to 64 at 2.0 percent.
The Federal Office only counted the employees directly involved in educational support, not those in management and administration. According to the information, there are also increasing numbers for young people: Among the graduates of school educator training, the proportion of men was 17.7 percent in 2021. In 2012 it was still 13.3 percent.
A mammoth task
Parents are happy about every helping hand, says Sören Gerulat, one of the federal spokesmen and board member of the Brandenburg Kita Parents’ Advisory Board. But in the short term, career changers who first have to be qualified will not help against the shortage of staff – in the medium term a little and in the long term, says Gerulat.
According to Gerulat, the federal and state governments should invest more in the quality of early childhood education. Educators should be paid better, training made easier and the profession made more attractive.
Employee representatives such as the ver.di trade union and the Association of Municipal Employers see things in a similar way. As early as 2021, both sides, with rare unanimity, called for new nationwide rules for the training of educators. This should become more efficient, more practical and thus more competitive, for example by being free of charge for the trainees and they receive appropriate remuneration, which is by no means the norm. The aim is to get more educational staff into the daycare centers – a mammoth task.
According to the Bertelsmann Foundation, an additional 308,800 skilled workers would be needed nationwide if all demands are to be met – both those of parents for a daycare place and those for child-friendly staffing. Specialists that would cost around 13.8 billion euros annually.
The federal government is supporting the federal states and municipalities with the organization of childcare with four billion this year and next. And the next challenge is already in sight: from 2026, the federal government will also introduce a legal right to all-day care in primary schools. In order to fulfill this, more staff is also needed.