Last Updated: Thursday, 28 February 2008 00:00

The Myth of Free Education - Parents Speak Out

Parents are growing more angry and frustrated at the amounts of money they have to raise to pay for the running costs of our primary schools.

Parents and Principals have come together in an attempt to address the issue of the underfunding of Ireland's Primary school system. The first phase of this collaboration is a survey of parents' views on the funding of their child's primary education. This survey, conducted by the National Parents Council, Primary (NPC) and the Irish Primary Principals' Network (IPPN), has highlighted the significant financial contribution parents are required to make to ensure their children can have access to education.

"The results of this survey clearly demonstrate the level of anger and frustration that is being experienced by parents of children in the Primary education system, regarding the cost of sending their child to school." said Áine Lynch of NPC. "The results show that while primary education is supposed to be free, parents have to contribute significant amounts to keep schools running and parents can feel pressurised to contribute money that they cannot afford."

The survey was conducted online at www.educationopinion.ie and www.npc.ie over the past number of weeks.

The main findings of the survey are:

- 98% of parents have an expectation that the state should pay the full operating costs of primary schools. However, 90% say that their Parents Associations fundraise to cover running costs of the school and 31% raise in excess of 10,000 Euro each year.
- 74% of the parents surveyed are asked for a voluntary contribution every year, with 10% saying that they can easily afford to pay this, but worryingly, 35% of parents report having difficulty paying the contribution or feel they cannot afford to pay it all. 45% of parents say that this contribution is not anonymous and that they feel pressurised to pay it.
- 93% of parents feel that schools shouldn't have to pay water charges and 99% of parents feel that the cost of water charges should not fall to parents to cover.

"Principals are deeply concerned at the amounts of money that we have to ask parents to contribute to keep the school running and to provide educational resources and equipment in classrooms. It is not the job of a principal to organise fund-raising or to look for voluntary contributions from parents to keep the ship afloat. If the service is not to be free, then at least we should be honest about it and impose a levy or charge openly on parents for their children to attend school. Pretending that education is free and perpetuating this myth while parents contribute millions to keep the doors open and the lights on is a national disgrace." said Seán Cottrell, Director IPPN.

Over 3,000 parents responded to the online survey on www.educationopinion.ie and on www.npc.ie. The survey is open for further opinions and views until the end of March and both NPC and IPPN encourage parents with children in primary schools to take part. Based on the results of this survey NPC and IPPN will decide how to progress this important issue further.

ends

Notes for editors:

Full survey results available on request.
Please email one of the following to request: pro@ippn.ie info@npc.ie info@ippn.ie

Below is a small sample of the opinions expressed by survey respondents.

"If we do not give children a love of school in primary I think it is harder for then to learn and do well all through their educational life. It is hard for children to like school in rundown, illequiped schools, where teachers are fustrated with the lack of resorces. I pay my taxes and have done all my working life and I feel that education should be payed for by the state."

"The fund raising is never ending. Our school is terrific but teachers and principals energy is diverted into raising money and running a business as opposed to academic and life education."

"The paltry level of government funding to primary schools is very poorly understood, even among parents of primary school children. The mythology of "free education" has served to disguise the reality of the situation. While there is some merit in parents cooperatively raising funds for additional or discretionary activities in schools, it is an absolute disgrace that so much time and effort goes into the business of "selling each other cakes and jam" in order to cover the basic operational costs of our schools. It is time that the government and especially the Minister and the Department of Education were held to account for their years of failing to address this situation. We hear endless debate about why secondary drop-out rates are so high, why literacy and numeracy are so poor, why maths and science are not popular. The answer seems to be too obvious to be visible: it is that our Primary School system is not functioning properly. The key reason for this is lack of funding. Others include lack of foresight in curriculum reform, years of neglect of the physical infrastructure of schools, lack of planning, lack of policy in relation to use of IT in schools (which is now, I believe, 3 years late). In short, we should publicise the realities of how rediculous the primary funding situation is, and make this a political issue until it is properly addressed."

"education is supposed to be free in this country, we already have enough costs in early childcare without having to fund the primary schools as well."

"I feel it is a form of stealth/double taxation"

"Its terrible that parents have to pay for the schools running costs. We are supposed to have free education in this country."

"what happened to every child being entitled to a free education.now a days its another worry about meeting the cost"