The federal and state governments agree that elementary school students are entitled to a full day

In the financial dispute over all-day care in elementary schools, the federal and state governments have reached an agreement. Accordingly, the legal claim should come from 2026. An important project of the grand coalition can thus be implemented during this legislative period.

The planned nationwide legal entitlement to all-day care in primary school can come from the school year 2026/2027. On Monday evening, the federal and state governments reached a last-minute compromise in the mediation committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat in the dispute over the financing of the project. Government and country representatives welcomed the agreement and spoke of a good day for children and families.

Both chambers of parliament now have to formally approve this. This should happen on Tuesday at the last Bundestag session scheduled for this legislative period and probably on Friday in the Bundesrat.

In the last minute

Without an agreement in the mediation committee, the law could probably no longer have been passed before the federal election and would have lapsed: Laws that are not finally dealt with in a legislative period are subject to what is known as discontinuity. They have to be introduced and negotiated again from scratch in a newly elected Bundestag.

The mediation committee was also under time pressure: According to the negotiators, an agreement by midnight was necessary in order to meet formal deadlines for referral in the Bundestag the next day.

Hundreds of thousands of places have to be created

According to the plans of the grand coalition, every child who starts school from summer 2026 should be entitled to a full-time place in the first four school years. For this, however, hundreds of thousands of new places have to be created, especially in the western federal states. The federal states had stopped the project before the summer break because of the financing dispute in the Bundesrat and referred it to the mediation committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat.

An agreement would still have to be confirmed by the Bundestag and Bundesrat. If there is no compromise, the law can probably no longer be passed before the federal election and will expire.

In total, it is about several billion euros. It was originally calculated with investment costs for building measures at primary schools for premises amounting to around 7.5 billion, of which the federal government would take over 3.5 billion. The running operating costs were put at around 4.5 billion per year, in which Berlin intends to participate in the long term with just under one billion.