SEEND
At the invitation of the local branch of Alliance 90/The Greens in Sehnde, interested people met with state parliament members Evrim Camuz, MP from Hanover, and Pascal Mennen, specialist policy spokesman and chairman of the Education Committee, for an exciting exchange on the burning issues in the field of early childhood education.
As is often the case, the focus was on the issue of the “skilled labor shortage.” “It must be about taking child protection and educational needs into account while at the same time providing reliable childcare times for parents,” Evrim Camuz and Pascal Mennen made clear at the beginning.
The state government has already set the course for this by amending the NKitaG in order to relieve the burden on the daycare facilities in the new daycare year and to give parents and children more security and reliability.
In particular, it is planned to give educational assistants with many years of work experience the opportunity to work as group leaders for a limited period of time if they are also taking part in further training, they explained. In addition, group closures should be prevented by making staffing requirements during off-peak hours more flexible and by extending the number of days of cover per calendar month. “If there are not enough people available on the job market to employ a third person in crèche groups, the mandatory third person can also be waived for a limited period of time without the group having to be closed,” they explained.
In order to create attractive conditions for recruiting additional skilled workers, the option of paid part-time training has been available since August 1, 2023. In addition, staff who are not yet trained educators or social assistants could initially work in a daycare center for a limited period of two years and gain further qualifications while working. Social assistants who already have professional experience could also gain further qualifications.
“In the area of early childhood education, we are moving in a field of tension between a wide variety of needs – on the one hand, there are exhausted educators and managers who do their best every day to make good care possible, and on the other hand, parents and children who want security and reliability in care. With our changes, we are setting the first correct and important course, but we also know that we need more to ensure that our daycare system is well positioned in the long term. That is why we will be making significantly stronger adjustments in 2026 with an amendment to the NKitaG. Until then, I am looking forward to opportunities for exchange like here and now, because for us MPs there is nothing more important than listening and learning from those for whom we make politics,” said Pascal Mennen.
Evrim Camuz, who has taken over care for the Sehnde constituency, adds: “As Greens, we would certainly have hoped that the childcare landscape in Lower Saxony was better positioned when we took over responsibility for the Ministry of Education for the first time in history. The changes to the NKiTaG that have been decided are a first step towards adapting individual standards to reality. We are giving kindergartens temporary rules to deal with the acute shortage of skilled workers. But after the reform is before the reform. In the long term, we will do everything we can to have sufficiently trained specialists in kindergartens, because good care is the key to a successful start to school and an independent life.”
