Teaching Matters/Valerie Monaghan; This term, the schoolbags of primary school children all over the country will bring home an all too common fundraising letter. In some cases the letter will be accompanied by a sponsorship card related to a sponsored walk, cycle, spelling or reading activity. In other cases, the letter will seek to enlist the active or at least financial participation of pupils' parents in a summer fair or golf classic.

Parents of children who have been in school for some years will be quite familiar with this routine. Parents of children who have only started school this year may not be fully aware of this form of local education tax to which they will feel obliged to contribute in spite of State commitments to free primary education.

What many parents will not fully appreciate is the extent to which their local education tax makes good Government underspending on primary education. This type of fundraising activity in primary schools is not for additional extras or little luxuries that the school could quite well do without. It pays for basic school requirements because the State does not.

Primary schools are funded by government on a capitation basis which covers running costs such as energy, cleaning, insurance, classroom supplies and office requisites. From the beginning of this year the Department of Education and Science provides €145.58 per pupil, which means that in a 100-pupil primary school all of the above must be met from a budget of less than €15,000 and in smaller schools, proportionately less. The impossibility of this was brought home to me recently when I spoke to a colleague of mine in a small school in rural Ireland.

Last year, this school got less than €8,000 from the State to meet its running costs. Out of that, €4,171 was spent on insurance, security, heating and refuse charges. Fifty four per cent of the budget went on these items before a further €3,367 went towards water charges, telephone charges, electricity and other necessities such as a televison licence. That was before basic hygiene bills were paid. Throw in the few toilet rolls and other requirements in this area and its not hard to see how the full Government grant was spent. Not a stick of chalk provided by Government, not a book, never mind anything to do with computers.

To provide a modern educational service to the pupils last year this small school spent a further €6,000. This money, in the main, went to buy classroom materials, office materials and equipment and keep the school computers running. In other words, in order for the teacher to have a stick of chalk, for the pupils to have a library book to read or a ball to kick, parents and the local community had to put their hands in their own pockets.

We might have moved on from primary school children coming to school with a sod of turf to heat the classroom - but not a great deal. For the sod of turf substitute the local education tax. It amounts to the same thing. Parents today are still making good the shortfall in Government funding for primary education.

I make no apology for describing this as a local tax in the same category as refuse charges and water rates. The argument of voluntary contribution doesn't hold. While county councils and local authorities have enforcement powers to ensure that householders and businesses pay their bills, parents feel morally obliged to support school fundraising because they know that if they don't then it is their own children who will lose out.

Nor is this a small school issue only. One of the country's leading economists, Jim Power, told the INTO congress last month that when he became a member of a school board of management in Dublin he was shocked to discover that a key task was to raise money from within the school community to pay for toilets and security fencing around the school. The nodding heads and knowing smiles in the audience of primary teachers showed clearly that he was not alone.

Reliance on a local tax like this is unique to the education sector. Can you imagine the local gardai holding a sponsored walk or a summer fair to paint the station or to replace bald tyres on the garda car? Could we imagine the revenue commissioners having to hold a golf classic to pay for calculators or computers? Doesn't it make a strong statement about how this Government values children?

And the younger the child, the less the Government pays for the running of a school. Second-level funding per student is €298 per year, more than double that paid to a primary school. This inequity is incomprehensible given that the funding pays for services that should cost the same regardless of sector. Does it cost more to provide basic toilet facilities at second level? No it does not. Is insurance more expensive in a second-level school? No it is not. This disparity has no justification whatsoever.

But leaving aside comparisons between primary and second level, the key point is that Government knows that its underfunding will be covered up by parents and teachers who want the best for their pupils. Parents will support summer fairs and sponsored walks, but the sad fact is that for as long as they do, primary schools will continue to get pennies from Hanafin and euros from the pockets of parents.

Valerie Monaghan is principal of Scoil Chiarán, Glasnevin, Dublin