The federal government grants for quality improvement in day-care centers are running out. A “daycare quality law” is now intended to ensure follow-up financing. Federal Minister for Family Affairs Paus plans with a help of four billion euros. One aspect in particular should be promoted.
The former family minister, Franziska Giffey, called her favorite project the “Good Day Care Law”. The law, which was essentially a 5.5 billion euro cash injection from the federal government to the states for their daycare centers, expires at the end of the year. The traffic light government now wants to build on this with a new “Kita Quality Act”.
At the same time, this is intended to counteract the persistently sharp criticism that is coming from the federal states and from associations because of the federal program “Language Kitas” for language promotion in the facilities, which will also expire at the end of the year. According to the plans of Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus, the federal states are to receive almost four billion euros for further quality improvements in daycare centers in the next two years. This is what the Ministry’s draft for the “Quality Act” provides.
According to Paus, the project is to be launched this Wednesday in the federal cabinet. The Bundestag and Bundesrat would then also have to agree. Specifically, there is talk of 1.993 billion euros in 2023 and 2024. In the budget deliberations before the summer break, the size had already been agreed in principle.
As with the predecessor “Gute-Kita-Gesetz”, the federal states can invest the money, for example, in more educator positions, better pay for staff or longer opening hours. However, the funds should no longer be used for new measures to reduce daycare fees for parents. In the past, experts had criticized the reduction in daycare fees for high earners in some federal states and called for the money to be invested in staff.
If parental contributions are levied, according to the draft, these must also be staggered nationwide according to mandatory criteria, such as the parents’ income. Family Minister Lisa Paus said it was about working more closely on the quality standards. “Daycare centers are not just care facilities, they are early childhood educational institutions. This law makes a contribution to further strengthening them here.”
What is new is that language support is declared one of the central fields of action for day-care center investments. The Ministry of Family Affairs has had to accept criticism for weeks because the federal program “Language Daycare Centers” is due to expire at the end of the year, with which Berlin has been funding additional staff at daycare centers for language development since 2016. In the current year, 248 million euros were budgeted for this.
The Education and Science Union renewed its criticism at the end of the program: “There is a lot of misunderstanding and anger in the daycare centers about the priorities set by the federal government. It is a catastrophic sign and a bitter disappointment for all those who have placed their hopes in the traffic light coalition have”, said GEW board member Doreen Siebernik.
The ministry has already reacted in the past with reference to the “Kita-Quality-Act” that is now available, with which the federal states could also continue language support. In principle, the federal states are responsible for day-care centers themselves. “Language support in the day-care centers is very, very important. What you take with you in the first few years of your childhood, you benefit from afterwards or vice versa,” said Paus. It is therefore important that language support is a quality feature in the new Kita Act.
Social associations basically welcomed the fact that the federal government wants to continue to support daycare centers financially. “Quality development is a task that can only be successfully designed together,” says a statement by the Paritätisches Gesamtverband. The association speaks of an important sign.
Criticism came from the left because of the planned restrictions on the promotion of day-care center fee reductions: “Financing the exemption from contributions is a question of educational and distributional justice in this country,” explained the state chairmen of the party from the federal states with left-wing government participation Berlin, Bremen, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and Thuringia. Education must be non-contributory, “from kindergarten to master’s degree”.