Care gap in summer: Parents demand solutions and support!
Care gap in summer: Parents demand solutions and support!
In Austria, many parents of school children have increasingly difficulty organizing holiday care. In particular, the discrepancy between five weeks of vacation entitlement and nine school -free weeks in the summer is a major challenge. A survey by the Chamber of Labor (AK) shows that four out of ten respondents had problems with holiday care last year. The AK fears that this situation will be tightened again, since many communities are under enormous financial pressure. Forecasts of the Center for Administrative Research (KDZ) indicate that by 2028, every second community could take a negative account of. This could have an impact on the provision of childcare places.
Community Association President Johannes Pressl (ÖVP) is already calling for a debate on deductible for public services. For many parents there are already “care gaps” of up to two weeks during the summer vacation. A quarter of the parents now use home office as an emergency solution to look after their children during this time. The AK is therefore forced to demand more high -quality and inexpensive offers, as well as to introduce organizational simplifications to improve the situation. You have stimulated a summer care summit with straps, the federal government, countries and communities.
shortage of skilled workers increasingly problems
An additional problem is the massive shortage of skilled workers in kindergartens, which exacerbates the already difficult situation. In theory, there are enough trained specialists, but the poor framework means that long -term employment is difficult. AK education expert Elke Larcher therefore calls for an overall plan with a long-term orientation to improve these framework conditions. A specific step plan could help to bring more specialists into the elementary educational institutions and to improve the quality of the care across Austria.
The situation in the childcare facilities is also flanked by a national strategy to combat the shortage of skilled workers, which was presented on May 21, 2024. The Federal Minister of Family Affairs Lisa Paus and Sascha Karolin Aulepp have presented around 50 recommendations for the generation of skilled workers. These include measures such as retraining funding, compensated practical training models and more flexible training and further education. It is estimated that over 800,000 people could be available to the labor market by improved care offers.
The recommendations of the strategy aim to improve working conditions and enable faster integration of people with foreign degrees. And the challenges of families and the shortage of skilled workers could also be tackled together. The cooperation of different actors is of central importance.
Overall, it can be seen that the challenges of holiday care and the shortage of skilled workers are closely linked. Parents are often left alone, while the framework conditions in childcare urgently need to be improved. It remains to be seen whether the planned measures and debates are fertile and lead to the desired improvements in the long term.
If you want to learn more about the current situation of holiday care in Austria and the planned strategies, you will find detailed information in the reports of Exxpress.at , orf.at and DetailsOrt Österreich Quellen
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