Styria says childcare waitlists do not signal shortage

More than 2,000 registrations remain on waiting lists for childcare facilities in Styria, including 935 in Graz, but the figures do not necessarily mean children lack care, ORF reported. Education councillor Stefan Hermann said families may have registered with several facilities and that the numbers were therefore not cause for concern.

Early childhood education platforms and the Childcare Exchange also said waiting lists at this point in the year were not unusual. They expect almost all children to find places.

Large regional differences

Coverage varies significantly across the state. For kindergartens serving children aged three to five, Deutschlandsberg has a coverage rate of 108 percent, Graz-Umgebung 100.4 percent, Leibnitz 96.6 percent, Liezen 107 percent and Weiz 97 percent, according to Hermann.

The situation is more difficult in Graz, the state capital, where kindergarten coverage stands at 90 percent. Hermann said the city would need to accelerate expansion in the coming years.

Further improvements are needed in crèches across Styria, Hermann said. The state reached the Barcelona target of 33 percent last year but still has room to improve overall.

A total of 1,022 additional crèche and kindergarten places are planned across Styria for the 2026-27 childcare year. Municipalities and providers will be able to apply for up to 320,000 euros for new crèche groups in the next funding round at the end of September.

However, the states are continuing to leave millions of euros in federal funding for childcare expansion unused, according to a response from the education ministry to an inquiry by the Greens. In Styria, almost 76 percent of the funds allocated to the state had not been spent.