Overview

• Hamburg, Bremen and now Bavaria require all four-year-olds to undergo language screenings to identify children needing intervention.
• Bavaria’s initial checks this year revealed nearly 24,000 preschoolers with insufficient German skills.
• Each Kita is missing about two trained educators on average, limiting dialog-based language stimulation.
• Children from low-income or migrant families face steeper hurdles to secure Kita places, with under-three access rates half those of non-precarious peers.
• The federal government has set aside €6.5 billion for Kita expansion next year, but experts caution that funding alone cannot close staffing and quality gaps.