Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - According to an SWR report, significantly more parents than before went to court last year because of the legal right to a daycare place. A survey by Südwestrundfunk at the four responsible administrative courts showed that the number of cases rose to 102 last year. In 2021 it was still 55. However, not all parents who complained were right. Because the entitlement of a child is reassessed in each individual case and depends, among other things, on whether both parents are employed.
Since 2013, children in Germany who have reached the age of one have had a legal right to a childcare place, but many municipalities in the southwest and other federal states cannot provide enough childcare places due to a lack of skilled workers.
According to a study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, there will be a shortage of 57,600 daycare places this year. But the shortage of staff is already so great that in some places the day care centers have to close earlier. After a survey, the Verdi union warned that the situation could get worse, since around a third of the skilled workers surveyed said they wanted to change jobs completely or reduce their working hours.
State Secretary for Education Volker Schebesta (CDU) told SWR: "The fact that the proceedings before the administrative courts on the legal entitlement to a daycare place have doubled is another symptom of the current shortage of skilled workers and the increasing desire for care on the part of parents." The Ministry of Education has taken a number of measures to get the problem under control. From the point of view of the FDP parliamentary group, however, that is far from enough, they only warned of an "educational catastrophe" in the country on Wednesday.
