Daycare centers in Saxony lack children: closures are the result

Kindergartens in Saxony's major cities are increasingly running out of children. Some will have to close as a result. "The slump in births is greater than originally assumed," said Sabine Grohmann, head of department at the Dresden Office for Child Daycare, in an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur. For this reason, six kindergartens with a total of around 3,500 places are to close in Dresden by 2026 and a further five by 2029. However, nursery teachers would not be made redundant. "We want to use the opportunity to create a reserve and further improve the quality of education and childcare." Only daycare centers that were once housed in room containers anyway to absorb peaks in childcare would be closed.

The Minister of Education Christian Piwarz (CDU) calls the surplus of childcare workers that arises when the number of children decreases a "demographic return". The facilities should stick to their staffing levels. "This would strengthen quality." According to the ministry, almost 318,000 children were cared for in 3072 facilities in 2022. Over the past ten years, the number has risen by more than 50,000 children. However, the peak has been passed. The previous peak in 2020 was more than 326,200 children. According to forecasts, the number of under-six-year-olds will continue to fall by around ten percent until 2025.

According to Grohmann, a decline in the number of births had been taken into account because fewer Dresdeners and, above all, fewer Dresden women were being born in the 1990s. "There is simply a lack of mothers," said Grohmann. However, it was not foreseen that the birth rate in the former birth capital of Germany would plummet from 1.6 to 1.24 children per woman. According to Grohmann, instead of the current 21,000 children aged three to seven, only around 17,600 will be attending daycare centers in three to five years' time.

According to Grohmann, the decline should be used to improve childcare. The work of nursery teachers has become increasingly complicated and demanding in recent years. Grohmann explained that more and more children have social and emotional problems and require significant support. They are aggressive towards themselves, other children and the caregivers, have difficulty fitting in and need more attention. There are also more and more children with deficits in language development. Other children, such as those from refugee families, need special support due to the language barrier. With a current childcare ratio of 17.7 children per caregiver, this is almost impossible to manage.

Only almost 5,000 children were born in Leipzig last year, around 1,000 fewer than in 2022. The decline is expected to continue until 2027, said a city spokeswoman. Only then is a moderate growth in children and inhabitants forecast again, mainly due to new arrivals. As a result, the city initially expects the demand for places in daycare facilities to fall.

The city wants to use the time to renovate nurseries step by step or take them offline. Some locations could be used temporarily to renovate other facilities or serve as a reserve. One positive effect of the fall in the birth rate is that there is more space available per child in daycare facilities, it was said. The quality of educational work is improving.

In Chemnitz, five municipal daycare centers will no longer be accepting new children from the summer. Demand is declining due to falling birth rates, it said. According to current plans, these facilities will close completely by summer 2027 at the latest.

According to its own information, the city currently provides childcare places for 64% of children of nursery age in Chemnitz. In 2022, however, this offer was only taken up by an average of 52%. The number of places available for children of kindergarten age is also greater than the demand.