Daycare centers in Saxony-Anhalt: Closures and falling birth rates are alarming!

Daycare centers in Saxony-Anhalt: Closures and falling birth rates are alarming!

In Saxony-Anhalt, daycare centers are changing. Many communities are struggling with a significant decline in birth rates. In 2024 there were loud noises MZ Around 12,500 children were born, which is the lowest number since the fall of communism. The reasons for this include the consequences of the corona pandemic, rising inflation and global conflicts.

How are municipalities reacting to this development? While some daycare centers have already closed or are facing imminent closures, such as in Naumburg or Magdeburg, others are relying on measures such as reducing hours or delaying renovations. In Gardelegen, two facilities are about to be closed, the city council vote is still pending. The forecast that two daycare centers in Goldene Aue could close in the next one to three years could also be discouraging.

Quality standards in early childhood education

Although birth rates are falling, there are regional differences in the daycare situation. While Wittenberg, for example, only has an occupancy rate of 58%, there is strong demand in the Seegebiet Mansfelder Land municipality with 95% of daycare places. This discrepancy leads to different challenges for the respective institutions, as explained MDR is reported.

In order to guarantee the quality of care, an improvement in the staffing ratio is required. The opposition in the state parliament advocates that the care ratios must be adjusted in order to optimize the skilled worker-child ratio. This particularly affects the smaller daycare centers, which are severely affected by the cuts. The need for further training and personnel transfers for educators to be useful in order to overcome these challenges is emphasized here.

The future of daycare centers

The fact that demand and quality in daycare centers must be ensured means that more and more voices are being heard calling for an improvement in working conditions. “We need good staff to look after children and families,” the Arbeiterwohlfahrt makes clear. The problem is also pointed out that around 23% of daycare staff will retire in the next ten years, which will result in a further decline in the number of skilled workers. According to the Ministry of Culture, a 10% decline in the under-six population is predicted by 2025, exacerbating the problem.

The challenge now lies not only in the care itself, but also in retaining qualified specialists. The CDU Education Minister Christian Piwarz speaks of a “demographic dividend” and calls for the daycare law to be adjusted to enable dynamic funding. There are proposals to increase the staffing ratio by at least 0.04 full-time employees annually until 2030 in order to strengthen the quality of education and improve working conditions. Parisax reports that this discussion about the personnel ratio represents a fundamental change for educational policy in Saxony.

In view of these challenges, solving the problems in daycare centers is becoming more than ever a task for society as a whole. Political decision-makers are called upon to develop appropriate solutions to keep early childhood education at a high level in the future.