The most striking aspect of the survey to all the mums at MummyPages HQ was the true cost of sending our little ones back to school – we knew it was expensive, but seeing the figures in black and white is shocking.
According to our survey of over 1,800 Irish mums, the cost of sending one child to primary school costs the average family €2,211, which sending one child to secondary school will set parents back €3,375 per year – and more if they’re using tablets!
No wonder 89% of mums are suffering from high levels of stress because of the costs at back-to-school time.
What’s worrying is that there’s potential for this situation to be even worse next year. 61% of mums have experienced financial difficulty in sending their child back to school this year compared to 51% last year, making it seem like back-to-school costs are on the rise.
For parents, the most expensive aspects of the ‘Back-to-School’ Bill are:
- School Uniform (including P.E. uniform) (75%)
- School books (69%)
- School shoes & coat (46%)
- Technology (45%)
- Voluntary contribution (37%)
- School bag & stationary (30%)
- School travel pass (7%)
To lessen to financial burden in September, 91% of mums say they would be in favour of a phased payment system throughout the year to incorporate the voluntary contribution, schools books and book rental scheme fees.
But even with that, parents would still face exorbitant uniform costs, which three-quarters of mums dubbed the most expensive part of the back-to-school shop.
Currently, 49% of children wear a crested school uniform and 35% wear a mix of generic and crested uniform garments, but that still means 68% have to be all or part of the clothes in a specified school uniform store. No availing of discount Tesco deals for us then…
The team at MummyPages ran a nationwide Can-the-Crest Campaign earlier this year, in which we found 67% of mums were in favour of a change in their school’s uniform policy, while 24% say their child's school recently made changes to its school uniform policy to help make uniform costs more manageable.
Speaking about the issue, Laura Haugh, Mum-in-Residence for MummyPages, says: “Ireland's free education is a joke according to our MummyPages mums who face school-related costs of up to €2,211 per child in primary school and up to €4,154 for a child in secondary school. Our research reveals that 61% of mums have experienced financial difficulty in putting their children through school in the last year [and] 89% of mums are suffering from high levels of stress because of the costs at back-to-school time.
“The most expensive aspect of the school bill remains the school uniform. Despite our best efforts to campaign for reform with 8,204 digital signatures on our petition to the government in May of this year, schools continue to be allowed to demand that parents fork out large amounts of money for crested school uniforms when similar generic garments are available for a fraction of the price.”
To find out your personal back-to-school costs, check out our MummyPages Back-To-School Calculator. For more information on our Back-To-School Survey, click on the image below to see our helpful infographic.
