Rob Hyde

So in Berlin, for example, Berlin's got free childcare.

And parents only have to pay a small monthly amount for meals, about 23 euros.

And you've also got the federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern that's in the in the northeast.

And therefore, under three year olds, it's also totally free apart from paying for meals.

Well, so primary school is six starting then.

But in terms of everything before that, it's similar to Ireland.

Yes.

The only problem is Germany being such a sort of intensely bureaucratic country, it means that the mechanics of everything moves very slowly.

And so you get very long waiting lists and people tend to apply sometimes two years in advance or even before the child is born.

um and i i think that really is what one of the key problems in the system and there are some some significant problems with the german system so the the biggest one has to be the shortage of child care places so on the one hand you've got this fantastic rule from 2013 which says um everyone has a legal right uh to child care so starting age one

But at the same time, in Western Germany, there's basically a critical shortage of places because demand is higher than supply.

And then in Eastern Germany, you've got quite a strange situation whereby they're just not having enough children.

And as a result, the nursing facilities are then closing.

So it really is incredibly varied across the country.