Teacher Training The Weak Link

Growing awareness of the importance of early childhood education has in turn focused attention on the role of kindergarten teachers -- and revealed it to be the weak link in Germany's education system.

That's because, unlike in most other EU countries, kindergarten teachers in Germany only need to complete a three-year training program to work as an early child educator, and not the full post-secondary education required from primary school teachers.

Critics point out that the lack of sufficient training leaves kindergarten teachers unequipped to provide children with intellectually-stimulating games and basic playful lessons in natural science, mathematics and reading. "The teachers at our kindergartens still see themselves first and foremost as babysitters," one Frankfurt mother recently told the weekly Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

The latest children and youth report recommends training kindergarten teachers to university level to ensure better preparation for their twin roles of educators and supervisors.

The training of kindergarten teachers has been a subject of debate and criticism for several years in Germany with several experts, social scientists and even the Green party and the teachers' union pushing to raise the qualification barriers for hiring new teachers.

There are signs that things are gradually changing thanks to a few initiatives by some universities to offer new specialized study courses on "pre-school education training" that trains teachers to work with children right from birth until the age of six. But there aren't many takers because the courses are rarely state-funded and thus cost money.

The problem is further complicated by the fact that matters of education in Germany are regulated at state level with different states sometimes pursuing conflicting policies. Education ministers from the 16 federal states did agree on a common framework last year to improve the education levels of kindergarten teachers in order to better promote young children, but so far nothing concrete has come of it.