The race for state childcare places will come as no surprise to parents in Luxembourg, many of whom resort to putting their names down before their child has even been born.
Such was the case for Mathieu and Julie (names changed to preserve anonymity), a couple living in a Luxembourg City neighbourhood with their young daughter. “The Crèche Service knew about my wife’s pregnancy before my family did,” Mathieu told RTL Infos, providing official documentation as proof.
Despite the couple’s early actions, the municipality of Luxembourg City told them it was “currently impossible” to grant their request for pre-registration at the state-run crèche, but nevertheless, placed their child on a waiting list. It was the start of a long and fruitless process for the couple, who only wanted to ensure they had a childcare solution in place before the post-maternity leave return to work.
To stay on the waiting list, the prospective parents were told to contact the Luxembourg City Crèche Service every three months. The couple said they did this religiously. “We were naive, we thought that because we’d registered so early, it would guarantee us a place at a public nursery,” says Julie. But they could not imagine the turn of events which would take place.
Months passed and the couple welcomed their daughter to the world. Julie has used a combination of maternity leave, parental leave and holiday to stay at home with their child until she turned one, in the hope that a place would become available in one of the capital’s six public crèches.
Unfortunately, with just two months left of Julie’s leave from work, the couple’s plan was yet to come to fruition, as the Crèche Service failed to provide updates. With time rapidly running out, the couple had no choice but to turn to private childcare options. “We were desperate,” Mathieu says.
Fortunately, the couple found a private establishment with space for their daughter - albeit at a cost. Currently, their childcare costs €1,500 per month after vouchers have been deducted, on top of a €500 deposit - the equivalent of a month’s rent in many surrounding municipalities. A public nursery would cost half as much.
But the problem is far from solved, as a large number of private nurseries in Luxembourg charge a fixed monthly payment regardless of the number of hours required. It also does not take holidays into account, meaning many parents are left paying childcare fees even when their child is not attending the crèche.
In the public sector, things are different. “Parents pay for the hours worked,” a manager of a public crèche in eastern Luxembourg told RTL Infos. In the private sector, however, parents have no choice. “It’s a contract of 60 hours a week, or nothing,” Mathieu says.
The couple’s daughter has been on the Luxembourg City waiting list for over 18 months now, but it no longer matters. Mathieu and Julie say they have given up on getting a space at a public nursery. In order to pay for the private setting, they have had to dig deep into their savings.
“We have to give three months’ notice to the current nursery,” Mathieu explains. “So it would cost us €4,500 to switch to a public nursery. And that doesn’t even take into account that my daughter has become accustomed to her environment, the staff, and the other children.”
The couple say they are disappointed and unhappy with the lack of follow-up by the authorities. “They left us in the dark for months,” says Julie. “There was absolutely no support or follow-up for young parents.”
Although the couple are not in a precarious financial situation, this is only because they planned their savings in advance. They did not go without sacrifices, Mathieu says. “We wanted to repay part of the mortgage because it is on a variable rate, but this won’t be possible now.”
The Luxembourg City municipal administration is well aware of the situation, according to VDL communications officer Christopher Probst, who told RTL Infos that 655 children were currently on the waiting list for a public nursery space.
The issue is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon, as the capital’s six municipal crèches can accommodate just 416 children between them. Despite the considerable waitlist length, Probst told RTL Infos that waiting times were “variable”.
The spokesman underlined the municipality’s “continuous efforts to increase the number of places available”, highlighting the construction of new establishments, such as a current project in Cents which will have capacity for up to 81 children.
However, the issue with the Cents location is that the construction site is effectively at a standstill. With an initial completion date of December 2022, the nursery is still no closer to opening its doors some 13 months later. The situation is more than exasperating for parents in the neighbourhood, who were counting on the new crèche to solve childcare issues.
In absolute terms, the Luxembourg City administration recommends that parents register as soon as possible to get their names on a waiting list. But this recommendation does not go far enough towards resolving the increasing issue of capacity in a city which has seen its population explode in recent years.
In the absence of a solution, new parents simply have to hope they avoid Mathieu and Julie’s fate. “They’ll do whatever everyone else does and put their child on the waitlists for several private nurseries, thus possibly blocking access for other families,” Mathieu concludes.
