The number of childcare places in Munich is increasing, as shown by the city’s current day-care center statistics, which were presented to the child and youth welfare committee on Tuesday. But it also shows that the shortage of staff in the daycare centers has worsened again. More than every fourth Munich daycare center, namely 27.1 percent, could not take in as many children as it actually has places – because there are no educators. Last year, the proportion was still 25.1 percent of the facilities. In the municipal day-care centers alone there is currently a shortage of 411 teachers. Among other things, independent providers are in favor of making it easier to recognize foreign educational qualifications.
“We need more career changers in the daycare centers, foreign educational qualifications must be recognized even more accommodatingly. And we must be given the opportunity to hire staff and continue to qualify them at the same time,” says Günther Hanel, board member of the umbrella organization DBTK for private daycare centers. There are still too many regulations that restrict the hiring of personnel. If the requirements are not met, there is a risk of the loss of funding. It is important to ensure the quality of the daycare centers, says Hanel, but that is only possible with more staff. “The greatest catastrophe is when a teacher is alone in a group.” Then the children wouldn’t get the support they needed, and sooner or later the educator would look for a new job.
Christian Müller, head of the department for the day care centers of Caritas Munich and city councilor of the SPD, draws a line when it comes to German language skills. “An essential prerequisite for new specialists is the language level,” he says. In his opinion, one way of relieving the burden on specialists in the day-care centers would be to use assistants who, for example, serve food, accompany children to the toilet or help them put on their mud pants.
“Qualifications from other countries must be recognised.”
But then there are also cases like that of the Hungarian university teacher: She speaks perfect German and was the only teacher in a facility who kept in touch with the children at home during the lockdown, reports Chris Hollmann from the city’s joint kindergarten advisory board. She came up with things to keep the children busy and encouraged. However, she is not paid as an educator, but as a nanny – with the municipal provider there is a difference in the starting salary of around 500 euros gross. Their qualifications are better than those of the educators trained in Germany. “Specialists like this university teacher need to be encouraged. Qualifications from other countries must be recognized so that well-trained specialists can be hired and all children have access to a childcare place,” demands Hollmann.
The day-care center statistics for Munich, as of January 1, 2022, count 91,955 childcare places – that is 2.7 percent more than in the last count in October 2020. However, only 90 percent of the childcare places were occupied as of the reporting date, mainly because educators absence. The majority of parents booked care times of seven to eight hours for daycare and kindergarten children, and between four and five hours for school children.
Just over every third child in the care facilities (38.2 percent) has a migration background. According to the definition of the Bavarian Child Education and Care Act, these are children whose parents are both non-German speaking. The proportion of children who are recommended to take a preliminary German course rose to 5.6 percent. However, not all of these children have a place in the preliminary course. According to the draft for the committee, this is a regular topic in exchanges with the state education authority.