2025

Third Act on the Further Development of Quality and Participation in Child Day Care

Quality development in child day care facilities and in child day care is seen as a task for society as a whole. Since 2019, the Federation has therefore been supporting the Länder with additional funding for quality development measures in child daycare in order to further develop quality nationwide and contribute to creating equal living conditions for children growing up in Germany.  On 1 January 2025, the Third Act for the Further Development of Quality and Participation in Child Day Care (Drittes Gesetz zur Weiterentwicklung der Qualität und zur Teilhabe in der Kindertagesbetreuung) entered into force. The Federal Government is thus continuing its financial commitment to improving early childhood education and care and will support the Länder with a total of around Euro 4 billion over the next two years. With the further developed law, the Länder will be able to invest in seven priority fields of action that are of particular importance for the quality of care:

• Needs-based services
• Child-staff ratio
• Recruitment and retention of qualified staff
• Strengthening of management
• Promotion of needs-based, balanced and sustainable catering and sufficient exercise
• Promotion of language education
• Strengthening of child day care    

2024

Overall strategy for skilled workers in day-care centres and all-day schools

In May 2024, the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Kinder, Frauen und Jugend – BMFSFJ) presented recommendations for short-, medium- and long-term measures to recruit and retain skilled workers, which were developed with the involvement of the Länder and a broad range of experts. Various levers were considered in order to counter the shortage of skilled workers – from education and training, to facilitating career changes and retraining, the recognition of foreign professional qualifications, and working conditions and framework conditions.

Joint Framework of the Länder for Early Education in Child Day Care Facilities

In March 2022, the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany (Kultusministerkonferenz) and the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Youth of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany (Jugendministerkonferenz – JMK) updated the "Common Framework of the Länder for Early Education in Child Day Care Facilities" ('Gemeinsamer Rahmen der Länder für die frühe Bildung in Kindertageseinrichtungen‘) from 2004, which sets out the principles of educational work in the field of early childhood education and care. The binding "Common Framework" refers to support in day-care facilities for children over the entire period of early childhood education and care.

According to the "Common Framework", the focus of the educational and upbringing mandate of day-care facilities for children lies in the early strengthening of individual competences and learning dispositions, in language education integrated into everyday life, in the expansion, support and challenge of children's thirst for research, in the formation and upbringing of values, in the promotion of learning to learn and in the appropriation of the world in social contexts. Child day-care facilities also have the mandate to live inclusion as a pedagogically comprehensive principle and to offer all children good starting opportunities and development conditions. The aim is to enable participation, to promote a self-determined life and to enable all children to communicate and interact in the different areas of life.

For more information on the "Common Framework of the Länder for Early Education in Child Day Care Facilities", see the article on the guidelines for early childhood and care.

2023

There were no reforms in the area of early childhood education and care during the reporting period.

2022

There were no reforms in the area of early childhood education and care during the reporting period.