About us

For more than 40 years, Student Support Services Münster has been looking after our students’ offspring, because no matter whether it is an unexpected or a planned child, whether you are a father or mother, a single parent or are living in a partnership, the combination of studying and parenting makes for twice the burden. The tertiary study reforms with the structuring of degrees into Bachelor and Master degrees, along with the compacting of course requirements and the timetable left to the student to organise themselves are all factors that provide particular challenges for students with children.

Of course the overriding emotion with a newborn baby is elation, but anxiety and doubt can soon arise about whether completing a degree as a young mother, father or couple is achievable. Often another factor that can make life difficult is when the student is living a long way away from the support of relatives and parents, so the family can't be called on to help out in a tight spot or on any regular basis.

According to a recent study commissioned by Student Support Services (2008), the Studie des Deutschen Studentenwerks , currently 7% of students in Germany have a child, and in Münster this number translates into over 3000 students who are also parents. Interesting that only 60% of the survey participants consider it possible to combine tertiary studies with parenting. Students with children have to manage their studies, their job and childcare, and they therefore especially require childcare that is close to the campus and offers flexible opening hours.

Best practice childcare can therefore be a significant factor in taking the pressure off students. Student Support Services Münster, with its three childcare centres, currently cares for 111 children of students and some support staff and therefore contributes to a great extent towards the certification of the university as a family-friendly tertiary institution and the successful "Educating for Excellence" program of the university town of Münster.

One of three facilities, the childcare centre “Kita Tausendfüßler” has been awarded quality certification according to KES in line with its pedagogical concept, with the Kindergarten Quality Certificate of the organisation 'PädQuis'. The second facility, “Kita Chamäleon” is working towards certification, and the third childcare facility provides emergency childcare on a flexible basis and for this reason, the certification is not appropriate and is therefore not planned.