Nationwide, around 100,000 educators are missing: woe, the daycare closes at noon!

After the daycare disaster is before the daycare disaster!

After three years of Corona with closures and appeals not to bring the children to care, parents are again afraid of the care!

In the Bavarian city of Rosenheim, parents were given notice of their crèche place at short notice. In Karlsruhe, three-year-olds are not allowed to stay for an afternoon nap, and in Tettnang on Lake Constance there is no afternoon care at all.

The reason is the same everywhere: lack of staff – nationwide there is a shortage of around 100,000 educators. Particularly affected: Tübingen. Of 43 daycare centers, only 9 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. should be open. And only four daycare groups until 5 p.m. or 5.30 p.m. That’s what the city government wants.

“We are used to something different from Tübingen,” says Maria Tiede (37) from the Parents’ Advisory Board to BILD am SONNTAG: “During the Corona period, Tübingen was creative. Now we are taking huge steps backwards.”

Mayor Boris Palmer (50) defends himself: “It’s not a backward roll into an old family model, but a pragmatic adaptation to reality.” A reality without an educator. The shortened care times are better than closing daycare centers again and again at short notice.

The expert for early childhood education, Erik von Malottki (36, SPD), warns of a “daycare catastrophe”. The recruitment of skilled workers must have top priority for the federal states and the federal government. The bottleneck in the day-care centers is a “accelerator for further shortages of skilled workers”.

Nobody wants a “forced return to old role models”. Wages would have to be noticeably increased, says von Malottki. The average salary of educators in the public sector is 3305 euros gross. The unions are demanding 10.5 percent more.

Bundestag member Heidi Reichinnek (34, left) agrees: “We need a skilled workers’ summit immediately, at which the federal and state governments, together with providers and trade unions, develop a strategy to bring back the skilled workers who have left the profession and recruit new ones. For this we need better training and working conditions and, finally, better pay.”

And what is the government doing? Federal Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus (54, Greens) points out that staff will be released as a result of the expiring federal program for language support (“language daycare centers”).

Paus to BILD am SONNTAG: “My ministry and I have pulled out all the stops to ensure that the skilled workers remain in the system.” We are talking about 6,500 skilled workers, and there are still 93,500 missing – at least.

This article comes from BILD am SONNTAG. The ePaper of the entire issue is available here.