Where are the children’s rights in the Basic Law, in particular the children’s right to education regardless of their parents’ wallets? And how are day-care center employees supposed to hold out in the face of a shortage of skilled workers? Ricarda Lang (Greens), member of the Bundestag, and daycare manager Iris Lanwer discussed this at the adult education center in Winnenden on Saturday evening. It didn’t turn out to be a comfortable evening for Lang, who faced some uncomfortable truths.
The emphasis was on “finally” when the manager of a focal point daycare center in Bietigheim-Buch wanted children’s rights to be enshrined in the Basic Law. Here Ricarda Lang had to ask herself how the thing agreed by the grand coalition failed last year. She referred to the lack of a constitution-amending majority. The traffic light is not enough – and the Union just does not want to participate. However, according to Lang about the necessity of anchoring the Basic Law, day-care centers are “not places of detention, but places of early childhood education”.
Right to education – how should that work if there are not enough staff?
As the head of a day-care center with 116 children and 20 employees, Iris Lanwer asked herself how children’s right to education should be implemented in the face of such a shortage of skilled workers. She sees her educators, who will also provide education in the future, already “at the end of their strength”. The demands of everyday working life are increasing day by day. She wonders whether the teacher training is still sufficient and why there are actually no day care social workers. After all, there are also school social workers.
And she wonders what political sense it makes to build family centers not in deprived areas, but as prestige objects in upscale residential areas.
The profession urgently needs to be upgraded and better paid, Ricarda Lang conceded, countering this with basic child security, which she wants to use to combat child poverty.
Butcher’s saleswoman as sick replacement
Lanwer criticized that this in turn did not solve the problems in the facilities, that nothing was being done about the shortage of skilled workers. “How far do we want to go?” she misses a quality law in the day-care centers. Iris Lanwer reported that in order to compensate for the general lack of staff, a butcher’s saleswoman had already been used to stand in for a teacher. Lanwer herself, as director, hardly has time to write concepts for fulfilling the protection mandate and updating early childhood education.
“In the political sphere you have to fight incredibly when it comes to children,” reported Ricarda Lang (here is a description of her) from the Bundestag and promised to make the shortage of skilled workers visible and to make the job more attractive; spoke out however only for a partial academization of the educator profession. Otherwise there would be a lack of people with training. Apprentices, she said, should be made more aware of the advantages of the profession, which means a secure job.
day-care centers and road construction
“If the topic of children’s rights would take up space with Anne Will, I would be happy,” said Ricarda Lang. From the opposition, Annalena Baerbock has already campaigned for children’s rights. “Now we’re in government and we can’t manage one,” Lang regretted.
More and better skilled workers, children’s rights in the Basic Law, inclusion in day-care centers and a children’s education summit – that’s what the listeners who came to the VHS on Saturday definitely expect from the Greens.
Lang and Lanwer agreed on one thing: “There’s a lot of talk about the importance of day-care centers – and the money then goes to road construction.”
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