News item | 09-11-2023 | 10:41
Childcare centers may offer multilingual daycare from February 1, 2024. The Senate today approved a bill by Minister Van Gennip (Social Affairs and Employment). This means that childcare may be offered in German, English or French for a maximum of 50% of the daily care time. Out-of-school care has been allowed to be offered multilingually for some time.
Minister Van Gennip: “The world is becoming increasingly international. As a result, we, but also our children, are increasingly confronted with other languages. The following applies: learned young is done old. That is why I want to offer children the opportunity to start learning a second language in childcare. This helps with a child’s development and language skills, and can have a positive effect on later labor market opportunities.”
Research by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment shows that there is a need among parents for multilingual childcare. There is a need for German and French in childcare, especially for childcare in English and in the border regions. By also offering childcare in these languages, a ‘continuous learning path’ is created with primary education.
In recent years, experiments have been conducted with multilingual day care. This shows that multilingual day care offers advantages for both children for whom Dutch is the home language and for children for whom Dutch is a foreign language. A distribution of at least 50% Dutch (or Frisian or a regional language) and a maximum of 50% German, English or French has positive effects on the language development of children.
Further conditions for multilingual day care and out-of-school care will be elaborated and later included in the ‘Childcare Quality Decree’. The aim is to publish this in the first quarter of 2024.