‘Voluntary contributions’ to schools are costing parents around 30 million euro a year.
For the first time the Department of Education has gathered returns from all primary and secondary schools.
It shows parents paid 28 million euro in the 2021 school year, however its thought that figure could be higher as some schools roll the contribution in with other fees.
Mary Dempsey from Wexford Saint Vincent De Paul says that the government should increase spending on education so that schools don’t have the need to look for contributions from parents:
“We feel that if there was more of a spend on education generally, it would mean schools wouldn’t have to look for contributions.”
Ms Dempsey went on to point out that these contributions are not always voluntary as school lockers and homework journals can be withheld from students until the payment is made to the school. She went on to say that there are also different kinds of hidden costs that parents face after school term starts and that’s when SVP really notice a surge in requests for support from parents.
