The Greens want to introduce a mandatory final year of daycare before starting school for all children in Germany. This emerges from a new position paper on early childhood education, which was passed by the Bundestag parliamentary group and is available to WELT. The Greens demand that the “start-ready year” must be free of contributions. The federal government should start discussions with the states about implementation and financing.
“With a binding and contribution-free Ready-to-Start year, we want to give every child the support they need before they start school,” said Anja Reinalter, Parliamentary Managing Director of the Green Party in the Bundestag, WELT. “In addition, parents should be informed about their legal entitlement to daycare as early as their first birthday and supported in finding a place.”
With this demand, the Greens go beyond Federal Education Minister Karin Prien's (CDU) planned Starting Opportunities and Quality Development Act, which is expected to be passed next week. For the first time, this provides for binding nationwide surveys of the language and developmental status of four-year-old children and, if deficits are identified, subsequent support.
Daycare centers should receive additional staff and resources for the resulting tasks. Facilities with an increased proportion of children in “challenging life situations” should also receive additional staff positions, for example for language education and daycare social work. However, the draft law does not contain a general obligation to attend daycare before starting school.
“Definite funding through federal funds”
In their position paper entitled “Every beginning counts: Creating the best starting opportunities for our children with a daycare quality pact,” the Greens are calling for a permanent “daycare quality pact” from the federal and state governments in addition to the mandatory daycare year before school. The federal government should permanently provide three billion euros per year for this purpose. In return, uniform nationwide quality standards should be anchored in law. "Anyone who stipulates permanently applicable quality standards must also finance them permanently. That's why we want to use the daycare quality pact to limit the funding period from federal funds," says the paper.
This means that the Greens' demands go beyond the federal government's daycare law. This provides for federal funds for the additional tasks, which are to flow to the states through a changed sales tax distribution. However, the federal participation is not intended to be permanent. The plan is for 1.493 billion euros annually in 2027 and 2028, 1.243 billion euros in 2029 and 993 million euros annually from 2030 to 2034.
This staggering had recently sparked significant criticism. At a public hearing on Prien's law in the Bundestag's Committee on Education, Family, Seniors, Women and Youth, experts warned of insufficient financing for the planned reform. Waltraut Weegmann, chairwoman of the Federal Association of Independent Daycare Providers, explained that there is a need for “sufficient, long-term funding for daycare centers by the federal and state governments.” The federal participation provided for in the government draft is not enough to finance the additional tasks, even according to the Ministry of Education's cost calculations.
The three municipal associations – the German Association of Cities, the German District Association and the German Association of Cities and Municipalities – also called for adequate funding from the federal government. “Even if we fundamentally welcome this objective, we ultimately reject the additional obligations imposed by the law on municipalities as providers of child and youth welfare,” says the statement for the committee.
The Greens are taking up the call for a permanent financing commitment. “While Black-Red wants to halve federal funding for daycare quality in the future and completely withdraw from funding from 2035, we are calling for a permanent daycare quality pact with three billion euros annually from the federal government,” said Reinalter. In addition, the daycare investment program from the special fund must be increased to eleven billion euros. “Good early childhood education needs reliable financing and enough daycare places.”
According to the Greens' ideas, the three billion euros in federal funds should not be distributed in a lump sum. A social index is planned through which daycare centers with many children from poor families, with a high need for language support or other social pressures will benefit more. Staff shortages, renovation backlogs and the municipality's financial strength should also be taken into account.
In addition, the Greens are calling for mandatory language and developmental assessments from the age of five at the latest and mandatory support if need is identified, just as provided for in the government draft of the daycare law. Educational equity doesn't just start at school, said Reinalter. "In Germany, it still depends far too much on the parents' home as to what opportunities a child gets. If you want to change that, you have to invest early on - and permanently."
Promoting early childhood education is not only educational policy, but also “an investment in the economic future and prosperity of our country,” the position paper continues. “It improves the compatibility of family and work and thus contributes to securing skilled workers and better exploiting one’s earning potential.”
Sabine Menkens reports on social, educational and family policy issues.
