German gov’t to introduce German language test for Kita kids

Education Minister Karin Prien (CDU) has presented a draft of the “Kita Law”, which includes a new obligatory German language test for four-year-old children.

Prien presents new Kita Law

Education Minister Karin Prien has presented a draft of her new “Kita Law”.  According to the draft, the government will spend a total of 9,25 million euros until 2034 to better prepare children for transitioning from Kita to school.

“A good education doesn’t begin at school, but at Kita,” Prien told the dpa. The draft law was created to address educational inequality in early childhood education, which is often compounded at primary and secondary school levels.

“With this law, we are strengthening language as a crucial factor in every child’s educational journey: for the first time, we are assessing children’s language skills nationwide and ensuring that they receive the support they need at an early stage,” Prien told the press agency.

What do the German language tests involve?

So what exactly is written in the Kita Law, and what do we know so far about the obligatory German language tests for Kita-age kids?

The law has three main aims: to make sure as many children as possible attend public Kitas, to determine early on whether children are struggling with German language skills and to offer targeted help to reduce any consequent problems that may arise.

Four-year-olds will not have to sit at a desk and complete a Lückentext, but the details of how staff will assess kids’ German skills are still somewhat unclear. The draft law states that “children’s language and developmental levels are assessed in a binding manner by the age of five”. 

To do this, Kitas “will be provided with staff for the assessment amounting to two hours per child, as well as for the planning and monitoring of support amounting to at least 30 minutes per child per week”. 

A higher number of specialist staff will be assigned to Kitas with a higher number of children in “challenging life circumstances”. Kitas with 80 children will receive additional funding for specialist staff for a total of 20 hours per week, with more than 80 children, at least 40 hours per week and for those with more than 120 children, at least 60 hours per week.

Alongside German language skills, the tests will also assess motor skills and developmental progress. Kitas will also be able to share the results with schools. Similar assessments already exist in some federal states, but Prien’s plan seeks to unify the system nationally. 

Childcare professionals see holes in Prien’s plan

Prien’s plan has already faced criticism from the Parity Association (Paritätische Gesamtverband) and the German Kita Association (Deutscher Kitaverband). 

Speaking to the dpa, the Parity Association said the German government was “making demands, but not paying” and that despite the 9,25 million euros earmarked for the Kita Law, the government had been “withdrawing from the long-term funding of Kitas”.

Waltraud Weegmann from the German Kita Association is also sceptical. Weegmann told the dpa that if children’s German skills are only assessed shortly before they begin school, then targeted help will likely come too late.

“The children who need to attend Kita the most, because they have gaps in their German language skills, are often the ones that come to us too late,” Weegmann explained, either because they didn’t manage to get a Kita place, costs were too high, or their families were not familiar with the Kita system.