Spanish early childhood educators flee to Germany for double wages

Diego Mateos sits in a Munich classroom with ten children and two colleagues. He takes home 2,500 euros a month. A year ago, he was in Madrid doing the same work—supervising 28 children with a single partner, earning nothing at all. "I feel bad about leaving because I love my country," the 24-year-old says, "but I know I can't live there on those wages."

Mateos is one of more than a thousand Spanish early childhood educators who have fled to Germany since 2012, recruited by firms like Helmeca that specialize in placing Spanish teachers in German schools. The exodus reflects a crisis in Spain's education sector: a new collective bargaining agreement signed in March sets salaries for private school educators at 1,200 to 1,400 euros monthly—barely above the national minimum wage. In Germany, the same work pays double. The gap has become impossible to ignore.

Sandra Navarro, 31, spent five years in Frankfurt before returning to Seville to teach at a bilingual school. She had studied early childhood education at the Complutense University in Madrid and spent years trying to pass civil service exams, always failing at the first stage. When she finally found work in 2017 at a private Madrid school, the contract was half-time and paid around 500 euros a month. She never had fewer than 17 children in her classroom alone. "The conditions were terrible," she recalls. A full-time educator earning 1,000 euros was considered fortunate. Little has changed since then.

The new wage tables, negotiated over three years and signed by employer associations in March, establish annual salaries of 16,800 euros for directly managed private schools and 19,600 euros for indirectly managed facilities with new contracts. But a lower category exists: support assistants earn only the minimum wage of 1,184 to 1,216 euros monthly. The union CCOO, the sector's largest representative, rejected the agreement entirely. "What was signed is merely an adaptation of old language to current law," says Pedro Ocaña, CCOO's secretary for private and socio-educational services. "The new salary tables perpetuate precarity through meager and ridiculous increases."

Margarita León, a political science professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, observes that many educators are contracted "as if they were care assistants." Because much of Spain's early childhood sector is private, she explains, contractual terms often fall below the actual qualifications of the workers. Magdalena Uhländer, a recruiter for Helmeca, describes the absurdity plainly: at Spanish job fairs, she finds countless academies preparing educators for civil service exams, but no companies actually hiring them.

Germany presents a starkly different model. Despite a birth rate lower than Spain's—1.35 children per woman versus Spain's 1.12—German law guarantees every resident child a place in early childhood education. Strict ratio regulations require roughly 15 to 20 educators for every 100 children. Over the next five years, Germany's system will need to fill more than 308,800 positions. Both Mateos and Navarro learned German through intensive six-month programs provided by their recruiting firm, reaching B2 proficiency. "It's difficult, but I surprised myself," Navarro says.

Ocaña argues the solution lies in reversing privatization. In regions like Galicia, Catalonia, and Madrid, more than 70 percent of the private sector consists of indirectly managed schools—publicly funded but privately operated. "The administration itself should provide the service directly, keeping the workers already in place," he insists. "If you can't pay an educator 1,500 or 1,600 euros, don't open a school." He emphasizes the weight of the work: educators carry profound responsibility for young children's safety and development.

Navarro, now teaching three- to six-year-olds in Seville, describes the role as physically and emotionally demanding, especially with attentive families. "You have 20 small children in your care for many hours," she notes. "You could end up in prison if something goes wrong." She returned to Spain during her first pregnancy after five years abroad. Mateos, still in Munich, sees no path back. "I'd prefer to be in Spain," he says, "but if I'm going to earn much less and struggle to pay my bills, I'm staying here. No doubt about it."