Study Too little staff for childcare

Day-care centers and crèches: Children are not looked after equally well everywhere
According to a new study, the quality of childcare in crèches, kindergartens and kindergartens has increased. However, there are clear differences in the various federal states. The study also showed that there are still too few staff for childcare in Germany.

Expenditure on fixed-term employment contracts
Although the quality of care in almost all federal states has increased, there are still too few staff in the daycare centers. This was the result of a new study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, AFP reports. At the same time, fixed-term employment contracts and a special time pressure on part-time workers put pressure on the educators. Another problem may be that it often comes to staff outages. For example, a recent study by Techniker Krankenkasse (TK) showed that kindergarten teachers are more often ill than average. This can be attributed, among other things, to congestion, but also to the fact that they are exposed to many viruses and bacteria when working with children. The loss of sick female colleagues increases the stress and strain on the able-bodied governors.

Too few people work in Germany's day care centers. Image. Robert Kneschke - fotolia

Caregiving conditions improved almost everywhere
According to the experts, the results of the current "Country Monitor for Early Childhood Education Systems" prove the necessity of nationwide uniform quality standards for day care. According to the study, there is currently an average of 4.4 full-time nursery nurses or 9.5 kindergarten children on a full-time day care worker. Two years earlier, an educator on average was still responsible for 4.8 crèche children or 9.8 kindergarten children. The care conditions improved in almost every state. However, significant differences in the quality of care were noted.

According to the study, the kindergartens in Baden-Württemberg have the best staffing numbers. According to this, in the southwest of the republic, there are 3.1 crèche children and 7.7 kindergartners for an educator. Baden-Wuerttemberg thus almost achieves the mentoring ratio recommended by the Bertelsmann Foundation, according to which a teacher should be responsible for a maximum of three children under the age of three or 7.5 children from the age of three. However, the experts pointed out that the actual care ratio in day-to-day Kita everyday precipitates unfavorable anyway as the personnel key. This is because educators spent at least a quarter of their time talking about teamwork and parenting, documentation and training.

Situation in the west better than in the east
The study also certifies the federal states of Hamburg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt recognizable better personnel key. With a support ratio of one to 5.1 in under three year olds Hamburg remains despite improvement in the tail in the West. Saxony (one to 6.5) and Saxony-Anhalt (one to 6.4) are the rear lights. In the East, it looks generally much worse. Thus, the personnel key is in the nursery schools in the new federal states at one to 6.1, in the West at one to 3.6. For the kindergarten groups, the personnel ratios in the Western countries are also better on average than in the new Länder. In contrast, the proportion of children under the age of three in Kitas in the East is considerably higher at 46.6 percent than in the West (22.7 percent). Bertelsmann Foundation CEO Jörg Dräger said: "Personnel keys are far from child-friendly and pedagogically meaningful, but the trend is positive."

Clear regulations are missing
The Bertelsmann Foundation also analyzed the structural working conditions in the day-care centers for their current country monitor. It showed that at present hardly any state has clearly defined how much working time is reserved for tasks apart from the actual pedagogical work with the children. Full-time staff can normally allow enough time for team and parent talk, documentation and training, but part-time workers are under pressure, according to the study. According to the study, however, at least 41 percent of Kita employees work less than 32 hours per week. According to the data, 41 of the trained professionals under the age of 25 also have only a fixed-term employment relationship. (Ad)