All-day education and care for primary school children in Germany – between legal entitlement, staffing requirements, and professionalization

Laurin Bremerich & Daniel Rohde

About the Authors: Laurin Bremerich is a research assistant at TU Dortmund University and at the Institute for Theory and Empirical Research in Social Sciences (ITES). His work focuses on all-day education in primary schools, with a particular emphasis on understanding and analyzing quality in all-day educational settings. Daniel Rohde is a research assistant at the University of Hildesheim. In his work, he deals with various topics related to schools, including multiprofessional collaboration, school social work, school development, and all-day education.

Germany's Ganztagsförderungsgesetz (2021) represents a transformative legal entitlement to all-day care for primary school children, elevating extended education from fragmented, voluntary local programs to a robust, nationwide infrastructure that families can enforce through legal channels. Launching with first graders in 2026/27 and fully covering grades 1–4 by 2029/30, it mandates up to 8 hours of daily care five days a week – including class time – plus extensive holiday provisions, excluding just four weeks annually, with flexible delivery via schools or collaborations with youth services and community providers. This ambitious policy bridges longstanding gaps between kindergarten entitlements and primary school realities, enhances family-work reconciliation, combats educational inequities, and promotes holistic child development through integrated care, learning, and upbringing – yet it simultaneously exposes critical vulnerabilities in staffing capacity and program quality as participation surges.

Policy Milestone: A Paradigm Shift in Extended Education

At its core, the law signals a profound departure from the past: no longer are all-day offers mere optional extras dependent on municipal goodwill or state priorities, but a fundamental right for 3.1 million primary-aged children across Germany's federal patchwork. Where kindergartens have enjoyed similar entitlements for years, the primary transition often meant abrupt drops in reliable care, with expansions over the last decade revealing stark regional divides – urban areas thriving while rural ones lagged. Now, this structured access aims to weave together education, socialization, and family support, fostering individualized growth and leveling playing fields for disadvantaged kids. Flexible partnerships between schools and extracurricular organizations open doors to innovative models, but success pivots on one pivotal factor: having enough skilled personnel to turn policy into practice amid escalating demand.

Staffing Crunch: Projections and Pressures

The numbers are sobering. With uptake varying by family needs and regional readiness, experts forecast a need for 30,000 to 100,000 additional staff by 2030, accounting for retirements, persistent vacancies, and the sheer scale of 3.1 million eligible children. Germany's pedagogical workforce is already stretched thin, grappling with chronic shortages in early childhood education, youth services, and beyond – compounded by high turnover from part-time contracts, burnout, and uncompetitive pay. Filling these roles exclusively with formally trained professionals, such as social pedagogues or state-certified early childhood educators, is simply unfeasible given training pipelines and labor market realities. In regions like North Rhine-Westphalia, data underscores the strain: unqualified personnel often rack up more direct child-contact hours than their qualified counterparts, highlighting how current infrastructure buckles under pressure.

Rise of Lay Educators: Opportunities and Tensions

A notable trend has taken hold in the field of extended educational and childcare services, which in most cases takes place after morning teaching hours. Schools are increasingly relying on "pedagogical laypersons" – individuals lacking formal social-pedagogical degrees – for essential tasks like homework supervision, mealtimes, and group management. This practice challenges the original vision of channeling them into niche enrichments like sports, arts, music, or crafts. Nationwide surveys peg unqualified staff at 15% of the extended education workforce, yet in practice, they frequently outpace the dominant 85% qualified cohort (largely vocational-trained educators) in time spent with kids. Empirically, differences emerge: qualified staff lean more child-centered, emphasizing children's interests, play, and autonomy over rote school-deficit fixes, and navigate thorny dilemmas – like balancing voluntary participation against parental care demands – with sharper reflexivity and nuance. Lay educators, by contrast, often default to rigid school-rule enforcement, naming fewer evidence-based quality markers (e.g., structured time use, cognitive activation, partizipation, or recognition), though they shine in domain-specific strengths, such as coaching soccer, leading music sessions, or sharing cultural know-how from community roles.

Balancing Quality and Access: Redefining Professionalism?

This evolving staffing mosaic ignites pressing debates: Does embracing lay expertise expand and enrich professionalism by infusing schools with real-world skills, or does it erode standards through creeping de-professionalization? Qualified professionals wield deeper pedagogical toolkits for fostering autonomy, reflective practice, and developmental support, yet research reveals a catch – they frequently sideline formal training in favor of personal biographies or intuitive habits. Lay staff unlock vital community connections and specialized talents, but without structure, their interactions can veer chaotic, lacking the scaffolding for sustained child growth. Alarmingly, knowledge gaps span both groups on core quality pillars – everyday relevance, motivational activation, inclusive relationships – stemming partly from curricula that skim extended education topics. Promising paths forward include targeted on-the-job training, hybrid teams blending pedagogical experts with subject specialists, and curriculum reforms to embed all-day care realities in teacher and social work programs. As Germany's entitlement era dawns, the true test lies in harmonizing ambitious scale with unwavering quality, ensuring every child reaps the full promise of equitable, transformative youth development.