It is not particularly popular with Munich parents, the Kita-Finder. Since 2014, the online platform has been intended to bundle and thus simplify the allocation of childcare places in Munich. The SPD and the Greens have now submitted an application to improve the day-care center finder. In the future, individual family situations should be better taken into account when allocating places. “Our goal is clear: more and more families should get the daycare place that suits them best,” says Lena Odell, spokeswoman for children and youth for the SPD/Volt parliamentary group. Improving the day-care center finder is also a point in the coalition agreement.
The SPD and the Greens formulate three change requests: In the future, it should no longer only be the working hours of the parents that determine which family urgently needs a daycare place; individual reasons such as long journeys, being a single parent or shift work should also be taken into account in the future. The e-mails that parents receive during the allocation process should be easier to understand. And in the future, parents should no longer be able to specify just one, but three preferred facilities.
The fact that parents can specify a day-care center of their choice at all was new for the past kindergarten year. The head of the strategy and policy department in the city’s daycare center had told the SZ in the summer that the awarding process had gone better than ever. Also because the assignment with the desired day-care centers went well. If the SPD and the Greens have their way, parents will in future also be able to indicate their second and third choice directly when registering in the Kita Finder. “It makes it easier for the day care centers,” says Lena Odell. “They then know which parents really want to see them.”
So far, the parents who both work full-time have the best chances
It is somewhat more complicated with the individual situation of the families. So far, families in which both parents work full-time have had a high level of urgency when it comes to the allocation of places. If someone cannot work full-time because they care for relatives, are a single parent or have a particularly long commute, this is not taken into account. These families therefore have a lower urgency in the allocation of places. That should change now.
“It’s about considering the factors that bind families beyond work,” says Lena Odell. You can imagine that families indicate these extra hours when registering in the Kita-Finder. “As a society, we have to stop seeing only gainful employment as work.” In order for that to change, the Department for Education and Sport will examine where there is scope for this in the Bavarian Child Education and Care Act.
All this is necessary because there are still too few daycare places in Munich – even if the number of childcare places is increasing. In Munich there are around 1,450 houses, in October last year there were 23,850 childcare places for children under the age of three, and the level of care for one to three-year-olds was 68 percent. On the same date, there were a total of 47,750 childcare places for three to six-year-olds, and the coverage rate was 94 percent. One problem with the expansion of childcare places is the lack of skilled workers in daycare centers.
Deadline is March 16th
A third change requested by the Greens and SPD: The written communication during the award process should be critically reviewed, according to the application. The parents received a lot of emails, says Lena Odell. Some are formulated in such a way that they cause concern: for example, when it says that the first round of place allocation has been completed, but the parents have not received a daycare place for their child. “That scares a lot of parents,” says Lena Odell. “It is important to us that this e-mail makes it clear that not all places have been taken.”
The deadline for the first allocation round in the Kita-Finder for the coming kindergarten year 2022/2023 is March 16th. By then, parents must have registered their children on the online platform if they want to be considered in the first round of a childcare place. Because the registrations for the coming kindergarten year are already underway, it will probably be difficult to implement the changes, for example to the desired daycare centers this year, says Odell. The change could come into force for the kindergarten year 2023/2024. But first the education department checks the application.