There are still just under three years until the legal right to full-day care applies. From 2026 onwards, first graders and then, in annual steps until 2029, all primary school children will be entitled to eight hours of care every day during the week, including teaching time, and care also during the holidays. To make this possible, the city of Munich needs an additional 6,100 childcare places and the necessary staff by September 2029: 500 skilled and supplementary workers.
In order to meet the requirement, the city council’s education committee has now approved 112 new positions. For this purpose, he will provide 6.8 million euros annually from 2024. The majority goes to personnel costs, for example for 75 new internship positions and administrative staff at the Cooperative All-Day (Koga) locations.
“For us it is not just about fulfilling the legal right, but above all about the needs of Munich families,” said Mayor Verena Dietl (SPD) at the meeting of the education committee.
There are currently around 40,000 full-day places for primary school children, and around 80 percent of first to fourth graders are cared for after school. Most of them in after-school care centers and day care homes, 10,500 children in lunchtime care, 6,200 in Koga and 3,600 in full-day care. These numbers should increase: “We are increasing the coverage target from 80 percent to 90 percent in order to take the needs of parents into account,” said city school councilor Florian Kraus (Greens).
Administrative staff should be hired to relieve the burden on teaching staff. The Education Committee’s decision also stipulates that the facilities receive a budget for coaching, supervision as well as play and activity materials, and the all-day program should also be better funded. Lunchtime care, which is mostly organized as parent initiatives, should also benefit by increasing the subsidy per hour from 11.76 euros to 13.50 euros. That alone costs 600,000 euros annually.
City school councilor Kraus emphasized in the education committee: “We still need lunchtime care, otherwise we would fail in fulfilling the legal right to full-day care.”
“We can complain and be outraged, but you just have to admit: This city is growing.”
“This increase in hourly rates was long overdue,” says Marion Rachals from KKT, the umbrella organization of parents’ initiatives, which also represents most lunchtime care providers. She would like supervision and further training for her employees. “After all, these are the same children they look after, with learning difficulties and burdened parents.”
Some facilities are already struggling with staff shortages. Not all children who are registered can be looked after every day. If several employees are sick, booking times have to be shortened: parents receive a message in the morning that they have to pick up their child at lunchtime. Some volunteer as helpers so that care can be maintained.
The situation was particularly severe in the primary school at Mariahilfplatz: parents were informed five days before school started that their children could only be cared for on a weekly alternating basis in the cooperative all-day school. The city had not found enough staff by the start of the new school year and ten positions could not be filled.
Working parents have to reschedule and be flexible. This leads to inconvenience and uncertainty for the affected families who trusted that their children would be reliably cared for, parent representatives wrote to the education department. Daniel Gromotka from the Joint Parents’ Council also understands the city: “We can complain and be outraged, but you just have to admit: This city is growing. What should they do?”