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Unemployed 'to work in kindergartens'

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Unemployed 'to work in kindergartens'
Photo: DPA

Germans receiving welfare benefits should be retrained as nursery workers, the labour minister said on Sunday. She said 5,000 people would be deployed to fill the gaps in the country's understaffed kindergartens.

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Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen approached the head of the Federal Employment Agency (BA) with her plan, and, according to news magazine Focus, they may begin working together to assess whether thousands of Germans on welfare benefits would be suited to the job.

Appropriate candidates would then go on to train at a technical college before beginning work at one of the country's day care centres where currently 14,000 pre-school teachers and 16,000 assistants are lacking.

While the plan has been welcomed by Family Minister Kristina Schröder, she warned that “the quality of the training should be carefully monitored” as childcare is a sensitive area, Focus reported.

Behind von der Leyen's idea is the government's plan to offer a kindergarten place for every child in Germany by 2013.

The Local/jcw

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