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Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - In the daycare centers in North Rhine-Westphalia there will only be limited operations from Monday - daycare centers will remain open in principle.

Groups are to be separated from each other and the scope of care for each child is to be reduced by 10 hours per week in January, Family Minister Joachim Stamp (FDP) announced on Wednesday in Düsseldorf.

Stamp also appealed to all parents who are professionally and family capable of looking after their children at home.

But there will not only be emergency care like in spring 2020, when in the first lockdown only parents with systemically relevant professions could have their children looked after.

The NRW state cabinet had previously decided in a special meeting how the operation of schools and daycare centers should continue from next week.

The federal and state governments had already decided on Tuesday evening to extend the lockdown to the end of January in view of the continued high number of infections.

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Before Christmas, the daycare centers in North Rhine-Westphalia were still open regularly.

The black and yellow state government had only appealed to parents to leave their children at home if possible.

According to earlier information from the NRW Family Ministry, only around 30 percent of the children in NRW had used childcare in mid-December.

In NRW there are around 10,500 day-care centers with around 730,000 children who are looked after by around 160,000 employees.

Stamp, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, made several promises before Christmas that schools and daycare centers would remain open during the pandemic.

With him there would be no nationwide closings of daycare centers and schools in the CDU / FDP state government, he had repeatedly emphasized.

Because of the corona lockdown, which was extended until the end of January, the opposition SPD in the NRW state parliament is calling for the fees for daycare centers and open all-day school to be suspended for December and January.

One could not ask the parents on the one hand not to bring their children to the day care center, but at the same time let them sit on the costs.