Investments in daycare centers: New places for Neuwied in 2025!

Investments in daycare centers: New places for Neuwied in 2025!

In the Neuwied district, decisive steps will be taken to improve daycare centers in 2025. On May 19, 2025, the Youth Welfare Committee discussed the daycare needs plan for the coming year, which was accompanied by a recommendation to the district council. The vote on the requirements plan and the investment cost subsidies is scheduled for May 26, 2025. In a press release, District Administrator Achim Hallerbach emphasized the successes since 2015, in which over 1,700 additional daycare places were created to meet increasing demand.

However, in view of the ongoing need for action, the impracticality and lack of flexibility of the daycare law must be addressed. The planned requirement for 2025 is 5,920 childcare places, with 252 places earmarked for children under two years of age. Almost all of these places should correspond to the legal right to seven hours of care including lunch, although there is uncertainty about the change for 128 places.

Construction work and investments

Around 70 percent of the offers offer longer care times of up to nine hours a day. Provisional solutions are planned at 13 locations for the 2025/26 daycare year. In order to expand the permanent capacity, 15 construction measures are being implemented. Requirements planning is based on forecasts of birth rates and immigration in the region, with particularly high numbers of children recorded in the towns of Windhagen, Neustadt, Kleinmaischeid, Großmaischeid, St. Katharinen, Dattenberg, Leubsdorf and Breitscheid. In contrast, Ockenfels, Roßbach and Straßenhaus are recording a decline in the number of children.

The Neuwied district is contributing 40 percent of the costs of the construction work, which has a total budget of over 11.921 million euros. These investments underline the importance of daycare centers as educational institutions and location factors in the region. The cooperation of all actors is necessary in order to effectively address demographic change and the shortage of skilled workers.

Nationwide support for daycare centers

The federal government supports the states in expanding and further developing child day care offerings. Loud bmfsfj.de The Federal Government's goal is to create good educational and participation opportunities for all children and to promote the compatibility of family and work for parents. Financing child day care is the responsibility of the states and municipalities, but since 2008 a total of five investment programs with a financial volume of 5.4 billion euros have been launched, which have created more than 750,000 additional places for children before they start school.

The five-year investment program is currently making one billion euros available for the expansion of 90,000 childcare places. This latter program is based on an economic stimulus package to deal with the corona pandemic and is partly financed by EU funds from NextGenerationEU. Funds can be accessed until the end of June 2024 and lay the foundation for further improving the care situation for children in Germany.

The care rate for children under three rose from 17.6 percent in 2008 to 36.4 percent in 2023. This shows the progress in the area of ​​early childhood education, which is also reflected in initiatives such as the Kita Quality Act and the overall strategy “Skilled workers in daycare centers and all-day care.”