As children get ready to return to school, more parents are looking for help

The spiralling costs of sending children back to school is driving Victorian families to the financial brink, with a year at a “free” public primary school estimated to set parents back more than $2800 this year.

The “shame and stigma” being felt by families who are struggling to afford the mounting costs of the new school year has been laid bare in a report from Swinburne University, while a leading Melbourne charity says a lack of basic study supplies is driving children to drop out of school.

The research from Swinburne, commissioned by homelessness not-for-profit Anchor Community Care, details the experience of families living in supported housing and struggling to pay for their children’s education at government-funded schools.

Parents reported children were missing out on a full school experience when there was no money for extracurricular activities, trips or camps. They told Swinburne researcher Suzannah Willis they would cut back on groceries and other essentials to free-up cash for school expenses.

“Makes you feel like a really bad parent,” one participant in the study said of the financial pressure.

Willis also found that some families felt pressured by their children’s schools to hand over money for voluntary parent contributions – which is in violation of state government rules.

“When there is a pressure to feel they have to pay something ... they found it really hard to go to the school and say ‘Hey, I can’t afford this’ because of the shame that they felt and the stigma that they felt,” Willis said.

“A lot of the kids will self exclude; they would say they didn’t want to go to camp because they knew mum or dad couldn’t afford camp.”

The Les Twentyman Foundation, citing research by consumer website Finder, has raised similar concerns, saying parents of children in Victorian public primary schools will have to find $2847 to pay for their child’s schooling this year, and $5310 for public secondary schools.

The foundation has been running its Back to School program since 1989, supplying disadvantaged families with essentials such as books, laptops and calculators.

Maribyrnong father David Glenny says that without help from programs and charities, he would struggle to equip his three school-aged children, Celeste, Addicus and Uraia, to go back to Footscray High.

“It’s impossible to budget nowadays. Everything keeps changing prices, the weekly groceries are getting smaller and smaller,” Glenny said.

“It’s a painful effort to get uniforms that fit, and let alone the books and stationery.

“Some of the books are $80 per subject, so you’re looking at close to $300 per child, and that’s just for the main books.

“If it weren’t for the Back to School program, we would be living off rice and beans.”

The foundation says one of the most common reasons for school dropouts is children not having books, laptops, calculators or other basic supplies their peers have.

In 2024, participation in the program grew by 18 per cent – to 917 children. This year, the numbers are expected to surge past 1000 students, marking an all-time high and forcing the charity for the first time to cap how much help it can give to each participant.

“The cost-of-living crisis that everyone’s been dealing with the last couple of years, I think, probably bites harder in the west than it does elsewhere in Melbourne,” chief executive Paul Burke said.

“Rents have gone up, food is more expensive, petrol is more expensive – it’s just everything building up.”

The Smith Family, which runs a student sponsorship program called Learning for Life, says that lack of basic items could seriously damage a child’s schooling prospects.

“Families are telling us loud and clear that the basics for school are becoming out of reach,” chief executive Doug Taylor said.

“Something as simple as not having the right shoes or uniform can deeply affect a child’s confidence from the moment they walk through the school gate. No child should feel that the reason they don’t belong is because their family is doing it tough.”

Victorian Education Minister Ben Carroll said the state government had a raft of measures designed to make state schooling more affordable.

“We’re making sure all students can get the most out of school with programs like school breakfast clubs, affordable school uniforms and glasses for kids, camps, sports and excursions fund, free dental check-ups with Smile Squad, free swimming lessons, free public transport for kids, free pads and tampons in government schools and ensuring families no longer need to purchase digital devices for primary school students,” he said.

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