Bad Kita-all day care in the West

Bad Kita full-time care in West Germany

06/07/2011

All-day care for toddlers is much worse off in western Germany than in eastern Germany, according to a recent study by the Bertelsmann Foundation. The West German municipalities come in the expansion of daycare (Kita´s) apparently not afterwards. In eastern Germany, the offer is much better and is used more frequently, according to the experts of the Bertelsmann Foundation.

The good care situation in East Germany is considered one of the pleasing legacies of the former GDR. Since most women were employed here before, child care was always a special concern of the GDR government. This positive structure has evidently been preserved until today, according to the latest study by the Bertelsmann Foundation. Although demand is also rising in western Germany, the municipalities can not react quickly enough, not least due to the lack of financial resources, the Bertelsmann Foundation researchers said.

Growing demand for all-day care services
Overall, the readiness of parents to provide their own children with full-time care has increased significantly in recent years, according to one of the statements in the current study. However, the resulting need for appropriate day-care places can not be served equally everywhere in Germany, explained the researchers of the Bertelsmann Foundation. Her study has found a clear east-west divide in full-time care. According to the researchers, almost 72 percent of Kita children over the age of three are cared for all day in the eastern German states, whereas in western Germany only 27 percent of Kita children receive appropriate care. Although in West Germany, the all-day offers are increasingly in demand, but the municipalities come with the expansion of Kita places simply not behind, said the researchers.

Significantly more Kita all-day offers in East Germany
According to the current study, the full-time care of children over the age of three years is significantly better in all East German states than in the West German states. The best situation is in Thuringia, where 90.7 percent of daycare children are cared for all day, followed by Saxony with 81.4 percent and Saxony-Anhalt with 61.5 percent. In the last places are the West German states of Schleswig-Holstein with 18.4 percent, Lower Saxony with 16.2 percent and Baden-Württemberg with 13.6 percent. For the study authors of the Bertelsmann Foundation, the current study results are also reason to demand a nationwide legal claim to a Kita-Ganztagsplatz. In view of the fact that today both parents are working full-time, the need has increased significantly, the researchers report. The legal framework, which has hitherto differed from one federal state to another, should be replaced by a nationwide uniform legislation, the experts demanded.

Municipalities can not keep up with the day-care center
But not least because of the empty coffers, the West German municipalities have considerable difficulty to meet the growing demand. For example, the expansion of suitable kindergarten places in West Germany lags significantly behind, while acceptance among the population is growing. The readiness for full-time care has also risen markedly amongst migrant families, according to researchers from the Bertelsmann Foundation. In Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, for example, more daycare children over the age of three were looked after by migrant families than German peers, the experts said. However, the demand falls and stands with the quality of supply, so that there is an urgent need to catch up in the West German states, stressed the researchers. (Fp)

Picture: Melanie Mieske