School fees being ‘extracted’

The head of an East Cork family and parents group has said that so-called voluntary school fees are now being “extracted” from already struggling families.

Eileen Kelly-McCarthy told the Cork Independent that certain schools in the county are leaning heavily on parents and giving them little choice but to pay administration fees that are supposed to be voluntary.

She said schools are using book rental schemes to apply pressure by linking them with the voluntary fees.

This means that if the fees aren’t paid to the school, the children will be excluded from the book rental scheme.

Ms Kelly-McCarthy said: “It’s a case of, if you don’t pay your fees, you won’t get your books from the book rental scheme, or your child won’t get a journal. That’s how the fees are being extracted now.”

According to the mother of three, considering how many schools in Ireland are being run by the Catholic Church, it should be the Church that absorbs the financial burden of running the school, not the families.

“Let the churches be the ones to finance the schools and stop coming after the families of Ireland to pay the costs because it’s wrong,” she said.

Ms Kelly-McCarthy said that if the Church is happy to force religious learnings onto students, then it should be willing to cover the costs.

She added that she had requested that her children be removed from religion class at their school but said that has not happened.

“Every time they go in in the morning, they’re forced to say a prayer. My son came home blessing himself this week,” she said.

Ms Kelly-McCarthy said the issue is compounded by the ever-rising costs of uniforms and books and believes that the way schools approach uniforms needs to change.

She said: “People are struggling every single year, families are borrowing money, it’s crazy and the older the child gets, the more it costs. Children are still buying jumpers that cost 40 odd euro, for what? What is the need for it?

“I’m not saying remove uniforms, but let the children wear something that’s comfortable. I know children below in my own school and they have sensory issues and they’re still forced to wear these rotten, itchy uniforms. They tear against your skin,” she added.

Earlier this week, Sinn Féin Cllr Danielle Twomey called on Cork County Council to address the issue of back-to-school costs and said her office was inundated with families in distress this year.

“I understand that a school uniform is a source of identity for a school and its students, but some schools do need to relax their policy.”

The councillor said one particular school in her constituency had an overly strict policy whereby the overall cost of the full uniform is €276 with the jacket costing over €60. She said parents were not forced to buy the jacket but that their children could not wear any other jacked or coat with the uniform.

Cllr Twomey said parents had quoted her as much as €800 for Junior Cert cycle books and that the average cost of sending a child to secondary school is now €1,500.

“With all of these issues combined, the pressure for families has brought many to breaking point. Imagine having two children starting secondary school. Working families are hit the hardest by these costs with no eligibility to back to school allowance,” she concluded.