In the new daycare year, the city of Cologne is training 259 young professionals in the city’s daycare centers – 33 more than in the previous year and almost 50 percent more than in the 2021/2022 daycare year. In addition, an additional PIA (practice-integrated training) class for educators will start next week at the Ehrenfeld vocational college for the new school year, so that a further 25 training places are available here. Flanked by other offers, such as further training and part-time opportunities as well as guarantees of employment after completing training, the city administration is creating an attractive framework for starting a career with the city of Cologne. In doing so, it is tackling the nationwide and cross-provider challenge of the shortage of skilled workers in the daycare sector and is implementing a comprehensive package of measures to recruit and retain staff. The aim is to improve the staffing situation in the city’s daycare centers and reduce vacancies.
Currently, 702 daycare centers in Cologne run by various organizations offer around 43,500 childcare places (including places in private commercial daycare centers). Of these, around 11,000 places are for children under 3 and 32,500 for children over 3. Nine more daycare centers are expected to open in the 2024/2025 daycare year. An ongoing, structured overview of the current childcare provision situation in Cologne can be found annually in the status report (SessionNet | 21st status report on the expansion of childcare in Cologne (stadt-koeln.de). The status report for the 2024/2025 daycare year will be published in September.
21. Status report on the expansion of child day care in Cologne
The daycare centers’ childcare offerings are supplemented by around 3,700 childcare places in child day care. This corresponds to around 30 percent of all U3 places in Cologne.
In the new daycare year, in addition to the eight existing daycare centers, up to four more daycare centers are planned as part of the city’s funding program in the area of child day care. This means that the target quota of 17 daycare centers will now be within reach.
In order to further develop the interests of Cologne families in line with their needs, the City of Cologne, in cooperation with the Child Daycare Contact Point, has launched a pilot project that aims to make a child day care place available in the future via the Little Bird reservation system. The City of Cologne expects to have the first evaluation results at the beginning of the new year 2025.
If you have any questions about registering and arranging daycare places and child day care places, you can contact the Family Office on 0221 / 221-21221 or the Child Day Care Contact Point on 0221 / 9139270.
Another important pillar in childcare is the bridge projects. These are particularly low-threshold childcare options for children with refugee experience or in comparable life situations. The city of Cologne has created 54 project locations with over 550 childcare places in cooperation with independent youth welfare organizations.
A major task for the city of Cologne is to acquire suitable areas for the construction of new daycare centers. Team of project coordinators is available to advise and support potential investors. Anyone who has an already developed, ready-to-build area for housing or commercial space in mixed-use areas and can imagine a multifunctional use of the property can reach contact persons in the Kita Construction department on 0221 / 221-29 153.
