BILL TYSON
€1,500: The incredible true cost of school
We all cherish the idea that education should be free. This isn’t just wishful thinking – it’s in the Constitution. Article 42 says: ‘The State shall provide for free primary education.’ Yet the notion of ‘free education’ has been well and truly demolished by a spate of reports showing how much parents pay to pack their children off to school.
The cost of a year’s education is now up to €830 at primary level and a shocking €1,495 for secondary students, according to Zurich Life.
This was the highest of three recent estimates – the other two were from Barnardos and the Irish League of Credit Unions. But they all said the same thing: education is not free.
One Dublin mother told the Irish Mail on Sunday how she has to fork out €5,000 for her three secondary school children by forgoing holidays and taking in foreign students (see panel).
Government efforts to curb uniform costs and assure parents that their contributions to schools are ‘voluntary’ have been exposed as hollow. The price tag for both items rose in the surveys. We’ll look at these next week in the second of our report on back-to-school bills.
Theoretically, ebooks should be cheaper because they do away with printing and paper costs but they are, in fact, more expensive to use than paper books.
Publishers admit that ebooks are 30% cheaper to produce. But they say the Government grabs back almost all of that by charging 23% VAT on ebooks – while paper schoolbooks are VAT-free.
The Department of Education and Skills says its hands are tied by the EU on this VAT measure. Maybe so, but it seems a crazy anomaly that it should be working harder to overturn. In the meantime, couldn’t it give back some of the millions it so reluctantly rakes in from VAT on e-schoolbooks? This could easily be done by bumping up grants for technology in schools for example.
At least when parents buy paper books, they can now get ebooks free. Yet where schools have an ebook programme, they can work out expensive for parents, especially if Apple products are involved. Mother Anne-Marie Murtagh told us she had to pay €2,400 for three iPads loaded with ebooks for her daughters, and €360 a year more just to insure them.
She’s a member of Ireland’s largest online community of mothers – Mummypages.ie. Its last survey on school costs (for 2017) showed parents forking out €1,834 on school bills, the biggest of which was for technology which had doubled to €598 on the previous year.
It’s easy for teachers to be dazzled by technology and order only the best for their pupils – especially when they don’t have to pay for it themselves.
Yet like doctors who prescribe pricey non-generic drugs, do teachers and schools fully consider the costs racked up on the parents who have to pay for these products?
Barnardos exposed a similar scenario involving workbooks. These are basically fancy copybooks which cost as much as some texts. Barnardos chief Fergus Finlay called on the State to ‘outlaw them forever’ in a submission to a Dáil committee in 2013.
Yet five years on, these workbook costs are still hurting parents. ‘They are still dreadful yokes designed for making money and largely superfluous from an educational point of view,’ he said. ‘Most parents find them another burden. They’re compeletely non-recyclable and non-reusable. Once written in they can’t be used again.’
Now Barnardos has issued warnings about ebooks. Underfunded schools pass on costs to parents via ‘voluntary’ contributions (up again this year) while the bill for new technology now also lands in their lap – along with a host of other costs.
Education Minister Richard Bruton has urged schools to ease cost burdens on parents. But he can’t get off the hook that easily.
Finlay made another point to the Dáil Committee in 2013 that still seems to stand today: ‘There is a fundamental lack of leadership in this area [education]. We fund the system but do not control it.’ He called for mandatory book rental systems and publishers to be forced to forego needless updating of school books (currently this is voluntary). Since then, he told us, little has changed.
The forthcoming School Charter Bill, which will require schools to consult with parents on items such as schools costs, is welcome.
But a lot more could surely be done, such as bulk-buying devices and providing them free, as Finlay demands. He also wants free primary school books.
At a cost of just €20m, this would be a drop in the ocean of our €10.5bn education budget and could be followed up by making secondary books free too for the same outlay. For €100m annually, all primary education costs could be abolished. In the meantime, here are a few tips on how to cut costs…
UNIFORMS
Shop around. Mummypages.ie advises checking out chain store outlets where possible to get the best prices. They all have special deals – but don’t leave it till the last minute or the best will be gone.
If your school doesn’t allow generic uniforms – and you feel that it should to save you money – make your feelings known to parent bodies and local politicians.
LUNCHES
School lunches cost €175 for secondary school students for just one term. But it’s still cheaper and healthier than handing over cash for café food.
Even if healthy food is available in or near the school, children can easily get into the habit of buying junk food, even if instructed to get in their greens with healthy options.
Many schools have microwaves where pupils can reheat food you have made. It’s also handy to make a lot of lunches in one go and freeze them.
TRANSPORT
Getting to and from school costs €175 a year for secondary students. Walking or cycling is free if you have safe cycle paths in your area. Check if your child is eligible for a school bus. If not, car pooling is always an option for hard-pressed parents. Investing in an electric car or bike is also worth considering as these are ideal for short hops to school. You can write off half the purchase costs if selfemployed, or get one free of benefit-in-kind if on PAYE.
EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
For primary school children the average cost of activities is €153 per child.
Parents are advised not to enrol their child in too many things and to test whether their enthusiasm for certain activities is genuine – or simply a shortlived fad.
Again parents can lobby their schools to make gym and sports gear cheaper by allowing sewon crests for generic items.