Berlin/Schwerin (dpa/mv) - Efforts to maintain the federal program "Language Kitas" to remedy language deficits in preschool age continue: On Monday the Petitions Committee of the Bundestag in Berlin dealt with the topic. The public hearing went back to an initiative by the head of the day-care center Wenke Stadach from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Almost 280,000 people signed their petition to preserve the language day-care centers - almost six times as many as required.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's Minister of Education, Simone Oldenburg (left), saw the hearing forced by the petition as a further step towards averting the imminent end of federal funding. The additional language support of more than 500,000 little girls and boys throughout Germany is urgently needed so that they can understand each other, be understood and understand the world, as she said. Language is the "key to the world".
At the request of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saarland, the Bundesrat unanimously called on the federal government in mid-September to consolidate the federal programme. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania alone, according to Oldenburg, 171 specialists for language support in 140 language day-care centers are financed with the help of federal funds.
According to the will of the Berlin traffic light coalition, the separate funding should expire at the end of 2022. Language support is then to be integrated into the "Kita-Quality-Law", the successor to the so-called Good-Kita-Law, without any additional funds being made available.
The supporters of the separate program for language day-care centers hope that Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) will give in. Most recently, under pressure from the campaign, the minister spoke out in favor of transferring the previous federal program to the hands of the federal states and an interim solution from January to the end of June 2023, the petitioners said. Despite this statement, a solution is still not in sight.
