It’s ‘back to school’ time and while the children are excited to meet their mates again, their parents are trying to save every penny possible to meet the mounting education expenses as schools reopen next month.
Despite working on well laid plans and setting aside money for their ward’s education, parents are only met with costs that are ever growing.
Chitra has saved up thousands of rupees to pay her only daughter Keerthana’s school fees — this unfortunately came at the expense of a planned holiday to visit relatives. All because she wanted her ward to study in one of the best schools, located in the city’s high profile Nungambakkam area. “My daughter is promoted to Class 2 and the fees alone is about Rs 32,000 which I can pay in terms. But since her school reopens on June 4, we have to get her uniforms and books ready. So we had to forgo the holiday,” she says.
Chitra, a teacher herself, said the school has already given the notebooks and had instructed them to collect textbooks in the first week of June. “I am bored of sitting at home. There are still a few more days to go. But I am excited that I will be seeing my friends and we will wear new uniforms,” little Keerthana says with a smile.
Govindrajan of Nanganallur had to pay Rs 15,000 in the first term for his elder daughter Manasvini, who was promoted to Class 3. Tuition fees, uniforms, school bag, books, school van — the list only gets bigger and it is somewhat similar over the next three terms. Since he had to bear a lot of expenses for his elder daughter’s CBSE school education, he had to enrol his younger daughter Tejaswini in a small state-board school.
Aishwarya, studying in a school in Kilpauk, is yet to get her CBSE Class 10 results but her parents have already paid Rs 8,000 as a token fee to reserve a Commerce group slot for her Class 11, as is mandatarily required.
But that’s not all. Apart from the Rs 25,000 school tuition fee, they have to spend over Rs 5,000 just for the school uniform and the branded shoes that the school would be distributing. “We are trying our best to cut costs. The school van costs about `3000,” her mother Yamuna says.
“We found a private auto that charges only Rs 1,000. And even the school uniform, we are planning to buy outside,” she further explains her cost cutting measures.