Editorial - Perhaps schools need a lesson

Education sets you free. But it costs a bomb.

Our local school principals want to teach us a maths lesson. Rid yourself of any idea that education is free. Despite the message from the education minister that it is, it is clearly not, as this week's feature by Carly Gibbs finds.

Anyone with a child over 5 knows how crippling is the cost of sending that child to school. Not just basic fees, but uniforms, stationery, bus, activities, sports, exams. In my day we used to get free milk, books and music. Arts and sports were offered without extra charge. Now you pay for the staple that pins your term invoice.

On top of that there is the murky issue of school donations. Carly Gibbs reports that an average of 60 per cent of parents pay optional fees. The Ministry of Education's line is clear. Schools must not pressure parents into paying. But many schools do. At some, if you cannot afford to pay the donations you are told to mention this in your enrolment meeting. Many parents tell us that they pay the donations out of fear, that their child will somehow miss out, or worse, be discriminated against because their family doesn't fork out.

From a non-paying family's perspective, there are certainly reasons not to pay. Not only because of other school costs, but the cost of basic living food, housing and power are so out of kilter with income that many families even with a double income struggle to keep heads above water.

Yet schools have a fair point too. Without the money they can provide only vanilla education. For a rich and varied one, parent donations are essential.

Those who really cannot afford to pay because they are too poor still deserve the right to a rich education. I like to think that if my family fell on hard times there would be buffers in the school community to make sure my kids didn't slip through the cracks too. But there should be structures in place to fairly income test parents. If they can't give cash, maybe they can offer time or skills. To simply not prioritise the fees is not fair to the 60 per cent of parents who do budget for them.

And if we are paying, then schools must be accountable to us. We should have a say in where the money goes. They should also be held accountable to our children. One in five New Zealand children leave school without basic literacy and numeracy skills, the Government told us when they introduced National Standards. It does not seem we are getting our money's worth.

If parents are going to tighten their belts, then schools need to pull their socks up too.