Early Childhood Education

Early childhood education comprises the education of children from birth until they start school. Immigrant parents often use daycare services less than parents who were born here. Some immigrants have problems with the not-always simple sign-up procedure for daycare. That must be changed.

Half of children under the age of 6 in immigrant families speak very little German at home. This poses a special challenge for the childcare workers in daycares.

Children who grow up multilingual have a special potential. It will be much easier for them to learn other languages later. However, with insufficient support, they may not be totally fluent in any language. That is why it is important to support children early and correctly.

In the early 2015, the daycare facility “Little Globe” (Kleiner Globus) was opened by the Ausländerrat Dresden association. The facility has two groups of children who have grown up multilingual. The daycare workers at the facility are also multilingual.

By 2020, the Dresden city administration should take the following steps:

• Translation of important information for parents into various languages and the involvement of the General Translation Service

• Even better language support for multilingual children

• Expansion of the cooperation with the city libraries in order to better support multilingualism

• More inclusion of multilingual parents in the work of daycare facilities

• Improvement of the cooperation between daycare facilities and associations and advising organizations in the city neighborhoods in order to be able to help the traumatized children of asylum speakers