Education should be free. It’s meant to be free.
Yet in the middle of a cost of living crisis families are forking out thousands of euros to send their children to school.
· The average cost of sending a child to secondary school is €1288. It is €1152 for primary school.
· In 2021 parents paid about €30 million in so called “voluntary contributions” because the government fails to fund our schools properly.
It’s not surprising that many parents say that it is much more difficult to meet school costs.
- Half of primary and two-thirds of secondary school parents say they are worried about meeting costs this year.
- One in four secondary school parents said they had to take out a loan or borrow from friends in order to meet back to school costs.
This is scandalous in one of the richest countries in the world. The government has a huge surplus to spend. This should be used to make education genuinely free. Schools should be 100% state-funded and run by democratically elected boards of teachers, parents, and students. This would abolish the ‘voluntary contribution’ which, in the majority of cases, is not really ‘voluntary’.
Get out on the Cost of Living Protest on October 7th and demand free education now.