The £4.5bn cost of ‘free’ schooling
Britons will pay £4.5 billion to send their children back to school this term, a new study finds.
Parents are set to spend an average of £185 per child making sure they have all they need to start the new school year, a study by Morgan Stanley Consumer Banking reports.
These figures follow on from a report yesterday by group of charities, the school costs campaign coalition, calling for education to be made truly affordable – with funding from government to make uniform grants available.
The Morgan Stanley report finds uniform to be the single biggest expense for British parents, with the average mother or father spending £84 for each child.
Additionally, stationery and textbooks see parents pay out a further £22 on each child.
And there are fears that these costs could see children of poorer parents miss out.
Chief executive of charity Citizens Advice, David Harker, said: “Every child should be able to take part fully in school life, but not having the money to buy the correct uniform, join in activities outside the classroom, or go on school trips can mark children out as being poor, and lead to them becoming isolated within school.
“It may also leave them unable to fulfil their full learning potential.”
School trips are set to cost the average parent £60 per child, per term, with after-school activities and clubs adding another £36 a term to the cost of ‘free’ education, Morgan Stanley reveals.
To help make sure no child’s education suffers as a result of the cost of school, the school costs campaign coalition has made a series of recommendations to government.
- All schools should have an equal opportunities policy to ensure that no child will be excluded from activities in school time due to the inability to pay
- Ofsted should examine the impact of school policies on children from deprived backgrounds
- Schools’ compliance with DfES guidance on school uniforms and school trips should be more closely monitored
- DfES should fund ‘activity funds’ for schools to ensure that activities and school trips are open to all children
The school costs campaign coalition is comprised of Citizens Advice, One Parent Families, End Child Poverty, the Family Welfare Association, Child Poverty Action Group, Barnardo’s, Save the Children and the National Union of Teachers.
