YOUR FORUM FOR PLAY, SPORTS UND LEISURE AREAS
The majority of parents in Germany would like to see the imposition of binding quality standards for all child day care centres in the country. This has emerged from a survey of more than 4400 parents undertaken on behalf of the Bertelsmann Foundation. At the same time, the German children's rights organisation, the Deutsche Kinderhilfswerk, is also urging the authorities to ensure that all child day care centres provide outdoor play facilities.
It is a bit of a lottery when you decide to send your child to a kindergarten in Germany because there are no standardised regulations that apply to these facilities. While many such centres ensure that the very best is done for the children in their care, others are rather more lax in this respect. Those in charge of educational policies at the federal and state levels have expressed their intention to improve the quality of childcare facilities but the corresponding modernisation concepts often fail to see the light of day. The child day care sector in Germany is currently booming. The state authorities invested some €23 billion in this area where 3.5 million children were being supervised in 2014.
Both the federal and state governments intend to launch a new 'quality offensive' when it comes to childcare. The Federal Ministry of Family Affairs revealed in November 2016 in Berlin that it would again be making billions of euros available for this purpose after 2020. By the spring of 2017, "the cornerstones of quality improvement legislation are to be prepared that conform to the specific needs of each state," declared Manuela Schwesig, Federal Minister of Family Affairs. "This also means that we will need to invest considerably more here in future."
Local authorities in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for example will be receiving more than €10 million in additional subsidies to help them improve their child day care services in 2017. Stefanie Drese (SPD), the state's Minister of Social Affairs, disclosed in Schwerin that this money had originally been earmarked for payment of 'Betreuungsgeld' ‒ a benefit given to parents of children not attending a state-sponsored day care centre. But as the Federal Constitutional Court had rescinded the right of government to make such payments in this way, the resources would be used for this purpose. The funds will be assigned to the various regions on the basis of the number of children under the age of 10 years residing there. In the administrative districts themselves, there will be a 50/50 split between districts and the local communities in which the children live. However, the state government has no intention of prescribing how the money is to be actually spent ‒ the only requirement is that it must be spent on child day care services.
The Bertelsmann Foundation survey
A representative survey commissioned by the Bertelsmann Foundation found that the majority of mothers and fathers in Germany want to see the requirements for staffing, catering and personnel qualifications at child day care centres standardised throughout Germany. And parents are even prepared to pay for better quality; nearly 50% of them would be willing to dig deeper into their own pockets to fund improvements to the childcare system. Included in the survey undertaken by Infratest dimap were 4437 parents whose children were currently attending a day care centre.
A total of 86% stated that they would like to see standardised regulations on how many children each early years teacher should be allowed to supervise at any one time. There are significant differences between the various German states in this respect ‒ only Baden-Württemberg and Bremen have legislation in place that stipulates required staffing ratios. The Bertelsmann Foundation recommends that a teacher should be responsible for no more than three children under the age of 3 years or 7.5 children over this age. In the states in the east of Germany, however, staffing levels in some instances are at least 50% below where they need to be to meet this recommendation. Jörg Dräger, a member of the Foundation's executive board, is thus not surprised that a remarkable 93% of those surveyed in the eastern region were in favour of the standardisation of staffing levels: "Parents want their children to enjoy the same quality of educational opportunities irrespective of where they live," he points out.
Another 85% of parents want harmonised regulations that apply to the training of personnel. While all the states have approved a specific qualification profile for early years teachers, there is no standardised training curriculum that is valid for the whole of Germany. In addition, 90% of those surveyed would like the meals served to their children to conform to the stipulations of recognised healthy eating guidelines. But, as the survey shows, only one in three child day care centres follows such advice.
Parents also expect childcare facilities to provide an educational concept that is appropriate to the individual needs of the children. This means that 78% of those surveyed rejected any proposal to implement a standardised basic educational programme. Individualised concepts that take into account the specific situation of children, families and the day care environment itself are something that is to the benefit of the child day care centres themselves and it seems that parents recognise the need of these facilities to remain independent when it comes to their educational strategies. And this corresponds with the wish of parents to see more diversity in child day care services ‒ 84% want greater availability of such services in their locality.
They also feel that the current child day care system does not provide sufficient support to help parents reconcile family and career. Three out of every four mothers and fathers believe there are insufficient childcare facilities, particularly for children under the age of 3 years, while 63% consider that the opening hours of childcare facilities do not sufficiently meet the needs of parents. More extensive availability of day care centres is the wish of 78% of mothers and fathers and 71% think that more information on the local availability of services would be useful.
Of the 81% of parents who are currently paying for their child to attend a day care centre, slightly more than half (52%) consider the cost to be reasonable. But 46% think they are paying too much. Almost all parents (95%) are of the opinion that the federal government's contribution towards the funding of the childcare system should be increased while 48% of them would be happy to themselves pay more if this would result in improvements to the current system, although the other 52% are unwilling to pay more to see quality enhancements.
Some 14% of parents are not required to contribute to the cost of childcare services, either because they live in a state or city in which these services are free at point of provision or they benefit under special regulations. Their willingness to themselves finance improvements to quality is roughly the same as that of those who already pay ‒ in fact, 51% would waive their right to exemption from contributions in return for better quality in the sector; the corresponding figure in the eastern states is 63%. Dräger lends his support to the idea of introducing a system of free day childcare services throughout Germany over the long term, although he adds: "As long as it is necessary to make improvements to the system, it will be difficult to dispense with the financial contribution being made by parents."
What parents are required to pay for a place in a child day care centre depends on where they live. The contributions are fixed by each local authority ‒ they range from nothing to up to €600 per month. As a result, the extent to which parents feel the burden of having to meet the cost of childcare provision differs. Of those parents in the higher income brackets, 51% do not think that having to pay is detrimental to their quality of life although two in every three families with a lower or medium-level income see it as an uphill struggle to make the necessary payments. "Access to education should not be dependent on the financial situation of a local authority. We need standardised regulations that apply to the whole of Germany on what parents should be required to contribute and graduation of contributions on the basis of income," concludes Dräger.
The survey itself
On behalf of the Bertelsmann Foundation, Infratest dimap surveyed a total of 4437 German parents with children up to the age of 7 years attending a child day care centre. The representative survey was conducted on line from 26 September to 14 October 2016. All benchmark data on the day childcare system in Germany is updated annually by the 'Ländermonitor Frühkindliche Bildungssysteme'.
Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk: all child day care centres should provide outdoor play facilities
The German children's rights organisation, the Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk, has warned of the consequences of the growing trend to construct child day care centres without outdoor play facilities. Although guidelines or legislation are in place in 10 of the 16 German states that require that childcare facilities should provide outdoor play options, even here there is an increasing tendency to ignore these requirements.
"In high-density inner city locations this seems to be becoming the norm rather than the exception. In some urban areas, up to ten kindergartens are being forced to share the use of a single local public playground making it necessary to draw up a timetable for use to avoid the playground becoming overcrowded. At the same time, outdoor play is all too frequently curtailed when the weather forecast is bad or there are insufficient personnel available for supervision purposes," emphasises Holger Hofmann, the federal CEO of the Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk. "And even where a public playground is used, the design and facilities here differ considerably from what can be offered on a private outdoor site. Hollows, nooks and bushes where children can hide, trees on which they can climb, beds of herbs and edible plants and loose material that can be used in construction games are not often to be encountered on public playgrounds. It is in the environment of their own day care centre playground that children can explore those important aspects that help them develop their personalities and the opportunities of play. The right of children to play at any time and everywhere is being eroded," adds Hofmann.
The Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk together with its partners on the board of the German right to play organisation 'Bündnis Recht auf Spiel' and the parks and open spaces agency 'Deutsche Gartenamtsleiterkonferenz' are thus campaigning for the provision of sufficiently large outdoor spaces in any plans for new child day care facilities. As far as they are concerned, exemption from this obligation should be granted only in exceptional circumstances and such outdoor spaces must also be provided for when existing day care centres are redesigned or extended. They recommend that 10 m² of outdoor space per child should be considered the minimum requirement and suitable legislation should be introduced in all federal states to ensure that this stipulation is met.
In addition to furnishing sufficient free space, the design of outdoor areas should be as close to nature as possible and should offer age-appropriate challenges so that the children can indulge in their own self-determined forms of play and exercise, discover nature and find opportunities for relaxation and withdrawal. In view of the fact that children under 3 years of age are not adequately catered for on public playgrounds, planners should take their needs particularly into account.
"If they are to develop normally, children need diverse play opportunities in outdoor surroundings that have a natural feel. They must also conform to strict ecological standards. And the children themselves need to be consulted during the planning and design phases of the site," says Hans-Peter Barz of the 'Urban Play' work group of the Deutsche Gartenamtsleiterkonferenz.
To see details of the resolution 'No child day care centre without outdoor play facilities' issued by the board of the 'Bündnis Recht auf Spiel' and the Deutsche Gartenamtsleiterkonferenz and an overview of the legal situation with regard to the provision of outdoor areas at German child day care centres, go to www.dkhw.de/Keine-Kitas-ohne-Aussenflaechen
Photo: Berliner Seilfabrik GmbH & Co.
