In two kindergartens in the city, so-called understaffing measures have been implemented to address persistent staff shortages. Parents at the Funaborg kindergarten need to take one and a half days off work every week due to understaffing. This amounts to 32 days over the spring term, and these are added to up to 20 days of summer holidays of kindergartens. In total, this is at least 52 days off this year, while the average employee is only entitled to 25–30 days of summer holiday annually. If the measures continue next autumn, the number of days could approach a hundred.
It is clear to everyone that the situation cannot continue without leading to significant income loss for families and great inconvenience, both for parents and the economy as a whole.
Support families immediately
Closures due to understaffing are not without reason but are implemented to ensure the safety of children. The measures are burdensome for both children and parents and can have significant financial impacts on families in the city, especially for single parents. We in Framsókn want to support families in this situation immediately and propose that parents of children affected by understaffing measures be paid 20 thousand krona per child, per day, for as long as they persist.
Most parents have commitments in the labour market and therefore need to take measures such as taking turns with the children, hiring babysitting at additional cost, or taking unpaid leave. This weighs heavily on the household budget. Understaffing measures also create inequality in children's kindergarten access, depending on whether their kindergarten is fully staffed or not.
Understaffing means that funds allocated for wages in fully staffed kindergartens remain unused, and it is more appropriate to pay it out to parents to alleviate the burden on households. Such payments would then create a financial incentive for the city to resolve the staffing issue in kindergartens for the future, but the proposal assumes that the city must assess its cost due to the measures before making a decision. The major task remains to ensure the staffing of kindergartens, as it is socially unsustainable to continue with understaffing measures in kindergartens for months or years on end.
Staffing kindergartens is a key project
Kindergartens are the first level of education and the foundation of all learning. They perform some of society's most important work with our most precious assets, our children. Kindergartens also play a key role in gender equality issues, as countries that have systematically invested in kindergartens are in a better position when it comes to gender equality. It is therefore essential that we never fall asleep at the wheel in building up the kindergarten system and put all efforts into ensuring the important education and services provided there.
To respond to the situation, increased cooperation between the government, municipalities, teachers and educational institutions is needed, with the aim of increasing staff in kindergartens. With targeted measures, success is achievable. As evidence of this, there was a 160% increase in teacher education after Lilja Alfreðsdóttir, then Minister of Education and Culture, advocated for trainee teachers to receive paid internships and study grants for final projects in 2019. This teaches us that properly implemented measures yield real results. However, the project is not finished. The working environment in kindergartens still needs to be made genuinely attractive for newly graduated kindergarten teachers and assistants. This requires a concerted effort by all parties involved.
We should always place high demands on those working with children, and therefore it is important to increase the number of professional staff in kindergartens. The city should continue to have good cooperation with educational institutions and specifically explore whether further incentives can be created to attract more individuals to study to become kindergarten teachers and assistants, as well as create incentives to attract professionally trained staff to work in kindergartens.
It is quite clear that we must do better when it comes to staffing kindergartens, both in the short term to respond to the current situation and in the long term to ensure strong kindergarten operations in the future. Without improvements in the working environment of kindergartens, it is difficult to attract new people to the field and retain those already in it. Attention must be paid, among other things, to the acoustics in kindergartens, the preparation time for staff, the organisation of the kindergarten day, staff's Icelandic proficiency, salaries and more. Let us not forget that investing in the human resources of kindergartens is an investment in the future, an investment in our children.
Magnea Gná Jóhannsdóttir, city councillor for the Framsókn Party.
The article was first published on visir.is on 13 January 2026.
