PARENTS soon learn that although state schools might provide free education, it most certainly does not mean their kids attend school for free.
With children as young as the age of six, parents are faced with the rude awakening that their little terrors cost a fortune to put through primary school, let alone secondary school.
Christos Theodorides’ son Andreas is just six years old, and on September 9 he will start his first year of primary school. However, while it may have started out as an exciting experience for both parent and child, the 34-year-old has come to realise that it’s not going to be a cheap one.
For a husband and wife supporting their family on a modest income, the cost of getting Andreas organised for his big day has been enormous.
“The tuition might be free, but everything else certainly isn’t,” he said.
The couple forked out £184 to buy their son his school uniform alone. This included a pair of gym shorts, three t-shirts for PE, non-branded trainers, black school shoes (as he’s not allowed to wear his gym shoes), two long pairs of trousers and two pairs of school shorts, two short-sleeved shirts and two long sleeved ones, a navy blue jumper, a navy coat, and white gym socks.
“You might wonder why we went ahead and bought his long trousers now, but we were worried that we might not find them by the time he needs them in the winter. You’d be surprised how many places have already sold all their school clothes for children his age.”
He added: “He also had a new red coat in perfectly good condition, but the school stipulates that it must be navy blue. As for his socks, we normally buy him colourful socks, which he’s not allowed to wear during PE.”
Once the Theodorides couple had managed to get Andreas kitted out for his uniform, the necessary ‘accessories’ were next on their list.
Andreas knew he wanted a wheelie bag schoolbag and not a rucksack. Apparently six-year-olds don’t feel it’s “cool” to wear shoulder straps anymore and the little bags with wheels on the bottom which children pull along, or even shoulder bags, are the only acceptable schoolbags nowadays, his father explained.
“You’d think kids at his age wouldn’t know what’s fashionable, but they most certainly do. Spiderman is all the rage at he moment and so Andreas had to have one of those as well. He wouldn’t settle for anything else and couldn’t understand that it was more expensive than the other ones. In the end we got him one and a matching pencil case,” Theodorides said. The shopping spree set them back a further £27. They then had to fork out another fiver for an extra sharpener (the one in the pencil case was not the type that has a plastic attachment which collects the excess pencil shavings and acts as a protective shield which prevents kids from sticking their finger inside), a rubber, colour felt tip pens and crayons.
To make matters worse, the children are going to be given a list on their first day of school telling their parents what else they need, which Theodorides suspects means digging into his pockets a little deeper.
“I’ve realised that it’s going to be the same each year. He’ll be outgrowing his clothes and then the older he gets we’ll have to add box files, notepads and textbooks to the expenses. For the time being, it’s still quite cheap because he’s only in primary school and his sister is still too young to join him. But what about when the private lessons start? Or imagine having three kids or four kids at school age?”
Forty-year-old Maria Kanoura doesn’t have to imagine what the cost of private lessons means or what the anxiety of putting two children through school as a single parent is like. She knows full well the price of state education and had to juggle three jobs just to get by until her daughter left school last year.
“When my daughter was in her final year at the Lyceum, I was almost pulling my hair out it was so expensive,” she said. “Because she’s a girl she had to have fashionable gym clothes, trainers and school shoes, and her bag had to match her pencil case. She also had to have a new skirt and shirt, having changed size from the previous year.”
A trip to the shops and a few hours later she was down £250. Extra textbooks, stationary, pens and files, and she was down a further £160.
But the big shock to the system was the private lessons, said Kanoura. “I had to pay £200 a month for private lessons to prepare her for the University entrance exams at the end of the year.” Unfortunately, she is not alone in this burden, as many parents claim teachers do not cover the curriculum thoroughly enough for their kids to pass the competitive exams to gain a place at the Higher Education institution of their choice.
At the time, Kanoura was also putting her son, Stelios, through school, so on top of working three jobs, her daughter worked part time at the weekends to help out. Now that she only has her 14-year-old son to put through school, she has been able to drop one of her jobs.
This year she has already had to pay £250 for Stelios’ clothes, coat, school shoes and stationary. Fortunately, he fits into an old pair of his sister’s gym shoes, so she was momentarily saved the expense of buying him a pair just yet.
“But, he’ll wear them out in no time. They play football at break and run around in them so much that I have to buy him a new pair every month.”
Stelios also has a learning disability and so Kanoura pays £120 per month for a private tutor, over and above the extra hours he receives at school.
“You’d think the expenses stop there, but they don’t. Throughout the year you have to pay for Christmas photos, field trips and lotteries etc. You also have to pay around £30 to enrol your child in school, a portion of which goes to the School’s Parents’ Association. Depending on the school and how active the Parents’ Association is, means the price varies up or down slightly. In other words, if you’ve got four kids that’s practically a whole salary.”
Getting to and from school is an additional expense with the bus costing £0.60 per fare.
She added: “In short if on a daily basis you’re paying £1.20 for the bus, plus £2 for the canteen, then you’re talking over £60 a month. Frankly, looking at it, you need just one job to cover your children’s education alone.”
