Status: 03/24/2022 2:35 p.m
Lower Saxony is temporarily softening the standards so that more Ukrainian children can get a place in a day care center or crèche. The Verdi union warns of overloading day care centers.
The screw of the burden should not be tightened any further, especially not over several months, said Verdi country manager Detlef Ahting. Otherwise, the opposite would be achieved with the measures: “Manpower will be lost or even more urgently needed specialists will leave the profession.” The children who have fled must of course be given the best possible support, says Ahting. Due to numerous corona infections, however, hardly any day care centers are running normally.
Tonne expects up to 50,000 additional places
Lower Saxony’s Minister of Education, Grant Hendrik Tonne (SPD), expects the suspension of “several standards” to result in up to 50,000 additional places. Among other things, one more child is allowed in each group until the end of July, i.e. 16 children per crèche and 26 per kindergarten group. This change alone will create tens of thousands of additional places across the country, it said. In addition, the operating license for planned new day-care centers should be granted more easily so that they can be opened more quickly. The ministry is also lowering room standards so that more children can be cared for in small group rooms in the future.
VIDEO: Language learning class for refugees starts in Holzminden (3 min)
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Changes apply until the end of the daycare year
Minister of Education Tonne announced in the state parliament that this crisis regulation for daycare centers will initially apply until July 31. He doesn’t yet know whether the steps are enough to take all arriving refugee children into the daycare centers. “We are preparing both in the daycare and in the school system to create as much air as possible,” Tonne told NDR in Lower Saxony. The situation is regularly reassessed and then it is checked where further possibilities can be created to be able to help the children as quickly and as well as possible, says Tonne.
2,700 Ukrainian children and young people admitted to schools
To date, around 2,700 Ukrainian children and young people have been registered at schools in Lower Saxony. That’s an average of about one child per school. The number has tripled in a week.
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