It's finally enough for daycare workers: "We can't and don't want to work like this anymore"
Created: 09/18/2022, 22:26
The online event by MdL Johannes Becher met with great interest.
Over 60 interested people took part.
© Lorenz
The shortage of staff in day-care centers is constantly increasing.
A new proposal by the Minister for Family Affairs has now brought the last straw.
Freising
– The overall situation in day care centers is tense, that should be known.
However, it was a letter from the Bavarian State Ministry for Family, Labor and Social Affairs to the municipalities that more or less broke the camel's back and prompted numerous discussions afterwards.
In this “experimentation clause” there is talk, among other things, of caring for more children with fewer staff.
The Green member of the state parliament, Johannes Becher, wanted to ask specialists, parents and representatives of the specialist authorities, as well as unions, what the situation is really like at the grassroots level - and whether the paper from Munich could provide some relief.
Elementary and middle schools are also suffering - a fire letter was recently written.
MP is concerned about the quality of care
Whereby: Becher actually knows the situation in daycare centers all too well, since he looks at such places for a whole day once a month, which is why it was clear to him relatively quickly that exploiting the experimentation clause of the Children's Education and Training Act could not work like this.
As an introduction, Becher explained again what the Minister of Social Affairs Ulrike Scharf (CSU) was actually calling for in this letter: larger groups in large day care centers and mini-daycare centers and new entry-level groups, with which “grandma” could soon look after the little ones.
In plain language, this means: significant softening of group sizes and staff coverage, which is likely to quickly go hand in hand with a loss of care quality.
Daycare had to close groups because skilled workers gave up
What is most important for Becher, however, is: "We have to invest in quality - that's been known for years." As a result of the online discussion, no one was enthusiastic about Scharf's ideas - not even Christian Huber, head of an integrative daycare center in Fürstenfeldbruck.
His opinion: “Quality is not as important as it should be.
This is all madness – the demand is increasing and we can no longer meet it.”
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Another problem that Claudia Morgenstern from Arbeiterwohlfahrt described: “We had to close groups because skilled workers are leaving us.
Employees who have worked for us for ten years say: We can no longer and do not want to work like this.”
“Are not at the limit, but long past it”
"We're not at the limit, we've long since exceeded it," was the summary of Veronika Lindner from the Association of Daycare Professionals.
Why?
The answer was provided by the educator Rita Raab from Upper Franconia: "Smaller groups and a better staff ratio were promised to us for a long time - but nothing happened."
Mario Schwandt from the Education and Science Union also had something similar to report: "All of this is already on the union flyers from 2015." Like most of the other guests, he would like a speedy amendment to the Bavarian Child Education and Care Act, BaykiBiG for short - too , so that children who, due to the need, need a high quality of care very early on, do not fall behind again.
Misery begins with the training
The topic of inclusion is particularly important for Bianca Köhler, a teacher in an inclusion group in Haag.
Her sad record: "There are ten children in the district who need an inclusion place and don't get one because their parents are rejected everywhere."
According to the recently qualified nanny from Piding, Paul Tanner, the misery begins with the training: "Many do the training who do not know what they want." What also bothered him: "You are only in the practice once a week -Job and what is taught in school has little relevance to work.
It's two worlds." In his opinion, the reputation of the profession must be significantly improved, as must the pay
(By the way: everything from the region is now also available in our regular Freising newsletter.)
High fluctuation causes major problems in day-care centers
What also became clear in the two-hour zoom event: a major problem with the shortage of skilled workers is caused by high fluctuation - the skilled workers stop after a few years to switch to another profession.
According to Christiane Stein from the association "Self-Organized Daycare Facilities", it is "irresponsible" on the part of politicians to still seriously adhere to all-day care for children despite the lack of skilled workers.
Becher would now like to collect all the suggestions for improvement and think about it, because one thing is absolutely clear to him: “The first six years are the most important for the children.
Everything they learn there or not makes their life easier later – or harder.”
(Richard Lorenz)
You can find more current news from the district of Freising at Merkur.de/Freising.