Survey laid out true cost of primary education

AS any parent of school going children will readily testify, the financial burden placed on many families struggling to cover the spiralling cost of education can all too often be overwhelming.

With this in mind, an eye-opening new study undertaken by the North Cork Money Advice & Budgeting Service (MABS) has lain out in stark detail just how much it costs to send a child to national school.

Aptly entitled ‘ True Cost of Education 2016/2017’, this is the third survey that MABS has undertaken into the cost of education over recent years.

Rather than simply focussing on the financial implications of sending a child back to school in September, the survey takes an altogether more holistic approach giving a detailed breakdown of costs over each academic year.

In compiling the survey, MABS invited 15 families from different socio-economic backgrounds across both urban and rural areas of North Cork to participate.

The families were given spending cost diaries in June 2016 and asked to record all monthly expenses incurred over the following school year. These related to both the academic and social education their children received at their respective schools.

The survey also undertook a comparison across three different national school classes – junior infants, third class and fourth class – in order to highlight the disparity in costs between different, unnamed schools.

For example, the cost of sending ‘Pupil One’ to junior infants last September ran to a total of €594.03.

Further broken down, this was made up of €307 for clothing and footwear, €42.62 for books and €41.21.

The remaining amount of €204 was spent on what were described as ‘miscellaneous’ expenses including items such as: gifts for teacher (€60), school photos (€30), insurance/art/photocopying (€26) and school tour (€20).

By comparison the annual cost of sending junior infant ‘Pupil Two’ to school over the year came in at a staggering €1,112.30. While the cost of clothing/footwear was lower at €93.30, the costs of books came in at €95.

While, there were no costs associated with stationary, the miscellaneous category came in at a staggering €874 in addition to a voluntary contribution of a further €50.

The disparity in third class was also readily apparent, with the total annual costs for ‘Pupil One’ running to €405, while those for ‘Pupil Two’ were more than double at €902.83.

This marked difference between schools was apparent in fourth class, with the annual costs for ‘Pupil One’ coming in at €876.57 and those for ‘Pupil Two’ at €458.67.

Broken down, the total costs associated for the remaining years at national school equated to: senior infants (€382.25); first class (€419.64); second class €660.49); fifth class (€355.20) and sixth class (€593).

The survey found the average total cost to parents of sending each child to secondary school came in at more than €9,705.