Simple message: School’s too expensive

IT’S not rocket science — school costs too much.

This is the simple message the St Vincent de Paul (SVP) social justice team has been trying to get across to those in a position to do something about it. Our most recent target was the joint Oireachtas committee, which has just placed a report on the costs of school in the minister for education’s in-tray.

To be fair, the minister himself has been receptive and enthusiastic about our campaigning. But how many mandarins in a government department does it take to work out that we have the solutions to the various problems which cause hardship to parents? What we need now is action and accountability.

We need to stop seeing schools as autonomous, unaccountable, self-regulating units where we deposit our children every school day. We need to stop seeing parents as cash registers to be hit whenever a new injection of cash, for whatever justifiable and genuine need, is required.

We need to start realising that schools are in receipt of a large chunk of taxpayers’ money. We want to be confident that they are doing all they can to be as cost conscious as possible and keep the many costs of education down. For example, the costs of crested uniforms, unnecessary school book changes, the emergence of digital aids which in some instances has fuelled a rush to high-end tablets, school trips, voluntary contributions, curricular activities ... the list goes on.

While SVP welcomes the recent joint Oireachtas report on the costs of education, we are impatient to get real results on the ground and see a reduction in the parental stress when faced with yet another note home in the schoolbag. So back to solutions, but first some questions.

Why do we continue to have no set books — this leaves a vacuum to be filled by publishers competing in a profit-driven sector, which leaves the field open for survival of the fittest with parents at the bottom of an expensive pile of discarded, non-reusable school books. SVP ran a successful online petition on stopping frequent school book edition changes which rang a chord with the public: More than 10,000 of you thought we were talking sense. Where has this got us?

A set of guidelines for schools and parents but no compulsion, no sanctioning of sharp publisher practice, just an unenforceable commitment from publishers to limit edition changes.

SVP is still getting calls from angry, frustrated parents paying out hundreds of euro for children at different stages in the education cycle while they consign out-of-date books to the green bin even though there have been few changes to the school curriculum, bar Project Maths and the changes to Junior Cert which will begin shortly.

How can it be that schools are not obliged to ensure that they take practical steps to keep the cost of school uniforms at a minimum — SVP worked with Barnardos, the National Parents Council, and all the education management and representative bodies to ensure that a shortlist of options on making uniforms more affordable got to all boards of management to help them make the right choices. Are we confident that this will lead to a dramatic drop in uniform costs? Not as long as patron bodies and school boards of management continue to have the degree of discretion they currently have.

And, yes, the digital divide — how come Vat is charged at 23% on ebooks — how come companies can access schools to get access to an impressionable target group (it’s a bit like banking, you are inclined to stay with a bank out of inertia, if nothing else) and ply either their tablets and software at people who may not have the insider knowledge to decide on what is good quality and value? Why is this not regulated? Why is there not a task force of experts overseeing how digital learning is developed and delivered to our students? SVP has deep concerns that, even now, a digital divide is developing with better-off pupils accessing the latest technology while many families struggle to afford these overpriced and as yet unresearched new tools of learning. We expect nothing less than a strong lead from this minister to ensure that equity and value for money are the drivers in this new area.

SVP has engaged fully with the political system and has had its voice heard. Now it is time for solutions. While we welcome the fact that the recent report to the minister mentions many of our recommendations, we are disappointed that the critical issue of accountability in schools has been left vague. We all need to know who is responsible for policy at individual school level. While the boards of management are often tasked with decision-making, in reality it is the patronage bodies which set the agenda.

We go further and say that the minister for education is the ultimate leader and must achieve the changes outlined in this report. We know that parents want to be partners in their children’s education, and to do that there must be a different dynamic between all the players.

Austerity has cut deep into the lives of many families and short-term solutions will only damage the next generation. Education can play a pivotal part in our recovery. An accountable and effective system which obliges schools to show that they are doing their best to keep costs down is just one weapon in a much-needed armoury which can help Ireland exit this crisis without inflicting unnecessary damage to families who cannot afford the education costs currently demanded of them.

Maybe it’s time to ask the hard questions, and this minister has not shied away, so far, from some prickly issues. So let’s answer the question: Who is really in charge of our schools?

- Audry Deane is the Society of St Vincent de Paul’s social justice and policy officer