The German Association of Cities is warning that the federal government’s new childcare law could worsen the quality of care. The federal government wants to “impose new obligations on cities for language support and childcare quality without funding them”, chief executive Christian Schuchardt told the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger”, as reported by “Spiegel”. “More quality with less money – that cannot work.”
The Bundestag passed the so-called Startchancen and Quality Development Act on Thursday, 12 November, by a large majority, as ZDFheute reports. It is intended to improve early childhood education. It provides that data on children’s developmental status be collected for all children from the age of four at the latest. One focus is on language education, alongside social-emotional and motor development and mathematical skills. Childcare centres with particularly many children in challenging circumstances are to receive more staff. From 2029, language tests for all childcare children from the age of five at the latest are to follow, and from 2032 tests for further skills.
Dispute over funding
The federal government wants to support the federal states in implementation with a share of the costs and provide around nine billion euros by 2034, as ZDFheute reports. Calculated per year, that is on average less than the roughly two billion euros annually that the federal government most recently made available to the federal states for quality in childcare centres. Saxony’s culture minister Conrad Clemens (CDU) criticised in the Bundestag debate that the federal government wanted to halve the funding. The federal states are responsible for education, and the law requires approval in the Bundesrat. Clemens threatened that the federal states would call on the mediation committee. “Spiegel” reports that the Bundesrat could take this route next week; the federal states are demanding better funding and criticising that the federal government wants to cut funds.
Schuchardt demands that the federal government cover all personnel, administrative and operating costs arising from the law. This funding must be “permanently secured by law instead of being limited until 2034”. In addition, the federal government must ensure that the quality programmes already established in childcare centres can be continued. In most federal states, no funds would be available for this.
Criticism from the Greens and the Left
In the Bundestag, criticism also came from the opposition parties. Green MP Anja Reinalter said, according to ZDFheute, that the law was hopelessly underfunded. “That you don’t get more when you pay less – every kindergarten child knows that.” The Greens are calling for a “childcare quality pact” that would permanently and without time limit comprise three billion euros per year and benefit all children. Left party parliamentary group leader Heidi Reichinnek demanded ten billion euros by 2028, after which the funds should rise dynamically. She also spoke out against the planned language and development tests, with which childcare children would be measured and categorised.
Federal education minister Karin Prien (CDU), by contrast, considers the law the most important education policy course-setting of this electoral term. According to ZDFheute, she points to the federal government’s long-term financial commitment. Until now, there had only been funding for childcare quality limited to two years at a time. For the first time, binding nationwide quality standards would be created. CDU education politician Michael Hose said in the Bundestag that kindergartens would thereby finally become educational institutions.
The municipal umbrella organisations had already spoken out against the additional obligations in a statement for the Bundestag education committee. “Even if we fundamentally welcome this objective, we ultimately reject the additional obligations for municipalities as providers of child and youth welfare through the law,” it says there, according to “Welt”. Waltraut Weegmann, chair of the Federal Association of Independent Providers of Childcare Centres, had also demanded in the hearing “sufficient, permanent funding of childcare centres by the federal government and the federal states”.
At the same time, more and more positions in childcare centres are being cut because of falling birth rates, as ZDFheute reports. The researcher Kai Maaz said there: “One would be well advised to keep this staff in the system” – for good education and care. For the cities, therefore, no less is at stake than the question of whether the announced standards actually arrive on the ground. Whether the Bundesrat calls on the mediation committee next week is likely to decide how much money ultimately reaches the municipalities.
