The Irish Times view on schoolbooks: the high cost of ‘free’ education

More than half a century after free secondary education was introduced in Ireland, a new school year begins with many parents once again struggling to raise the funds to put their children through a system that is, in real-world terms, anything but free. Those sending a child to primary school this month will pay an average of €1,186, up €63 on last year, according to research published by the Irish League of Credit Unions. Parents of children going to secondary school can expect to pay an average of €1,491, up from €1,467 last year.

A significant share will go on schoolbooks, with the rest made up of extracurricular activities, sports gear and equipment and the “voluntary” contributions that parents are asked, encouraged and in some cases pressured into making.

The high cost of schoolbooks typifies wider problems with an education system in which the State forgoes the right to impose centralised standards and instead cedes control to non-State actors who, in this case, largely do as they please. The result is an inefficient, expensive and environmentally wasteful arrangement that benefits no one except educational publishers. In Northern Ireland, a long-standing book-rental scheme eases the financial burden on parents. Many European states run similar initiatives. The Department of Education gives around €17 million to schools each year for books and rental schemes, but it's up to schools how they spend it. A further €150 million goes to disadvantaged Deis schools, and that includes book grants. Yet still parents must spend large amounts - an average of €211 in the case of secondary pupils – on books each autumn, according to the League of Credit Unions research. In one week this summer, the Society of St Vincent de Paul fielded almost 300 calls every day from parents struggling with rising back-to-school costs for their children.

Making education free is one of the most important unfulfilled policy goals of the Irish State. It cannot happen until Government accepts the need to cover the costs of running schools and equipping children with the tools they need.