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Where to get school supplies? They rub their hands with glee
A backpack, a pencil case, notebooks, art supplies, sportswear, shoes and many more. The shopping list that needs to be done before the children sit down at their desks and start another school year is long. Parents of younger students can cross out an item that was the main expense for the previous generation, namely textbooks. For a decade, first-graders, and since 2017, all primary school students have been covered by a free textbook program. However, it does not include books and exercises for additional classes, such as religion or a second foreign language. – The program does not apply to secondary schools either, so this year our expenses will be much higher. I have already paid over PLN 100 for the German textbook alone, and where is the rest? I think we will spend at least PLN 600 on books and exercise books – says Ewa, the mother of a newly-baked high school student. However, even without textbooks, buying school supplies can seriously reduce the household budgets of Polish families.
According to the study "School Expenditures of Polish Families" conducted before the start of the new school year by Quality Watch for BIG InfoMonitor, 36% of the parents surveyed declared that they have two or more children of school age. 96% of them will send their children to public schools in the new school year, and 7% will use other types of schools: private (4%), social (2%), and even a cloud school (1%).
For the average family, the total average expenses for children returning to school will amount to PLN 1,816, and PLN 1,424 per pupil. Importantly, this amount is inflated primarily by the wealthiest parents. In practice, this means that the largest number, over half of respondents (55%), will spend no more than PLN 1,000 per child on school supplies this year, with approx. 40% of guardians wanting to limit these expenses to PLN 251-750.
"Dear" students
The purchases that cannot be avoided include textbooks, school supplies and clothing necessary for PE or practical vocational training. The amount that parents spend on this equipment is an average of PLN 928 per family (PLN 520 per child).
Some parents declare that they will also incur additional costs for the equipment of the child's room, electronic equipment and other expenses related to learning. The highest costs concern equipment supporting learning, such as a computer (an average of PLN 410). Parents spend less on the equipment of the child's room, PLN 268, but a large number of respondents do not plan such an expense at all.
Average costs per student also vary significantly across provinces. Parents will spend the least in Silesia (PLN 1,179), Mazovia (PLN 1,282) and Pomerania (PLN 1,296), while the most in the Świętokrzyskie (PLN 1,696), Lublin (PLN 1,694) and Lower Silesia (PLN 1,660) provinces.
– Part of the parents' expenses will be covered by a subsidy under the "Good Start" program. An additional PLN 300 of support for each child is received every year by parents of students who are under 20, and in the case of disabled students, 24. Last year, ZUS paid PLN 1.38 billion for school supplies for almost 4.6 million children throughout Poland. This amount will probably increase this year. 69% of respondents to our survey intend to use the funds from the "Good Start" program. The remaining parents do not plan to use this subsidy. As many as 72% of them will finance school purchases from their current income, and 56% from the 800+ benefit – says Sławomir Grzelczak, president of BIG InfoMonitor. – It is a sad fact that only 6% of people indicate that they will finance school expenses from alimony, which, considering how many parents do not pay them and what arrears are accumulating as a result, should not be surprising. According to our data, in July the amount of alimony debt approached the record high of PLN 16 billion. 293 thousand parents do not pay alimony and for this reason they were added to our database by the communes paying money from the Alimony Fund – adds Sławomir Grzelczak.
It won't end with an ordinary layette
Unfortunately, expenses do not end with the first bell. During the school year, parents also have to reach into their wallets regularly. The most frequently mentioned additional costs are school trips (86%) and various contributions, e.g. to the "parents' committee" (83%). Every third respondent also mentioned travel costs, e.g. a monthly ticket (36%). 1/3 of respondents will send their children to paid additional classes (32%), among which foreign language courses and sports schools are the most frequently chosen. Slightly fewer parents predict that their children will have to use private lessons (29%, + 4 percentage points compared to 2022), which will reduce the monthly budget by an average of PLN 437.
A significant number of families (65%) declare that their education-related expenses during the school year will not change significantly compared to last year. However, every third will have to give up some of them. Parents will most often cross out paid extracurricular activities (12%), tutoring and school trips (9% each) from the list of additional costs. Every tenth respondent (9%) does not intend to pay voluntary contributions either.
The high cost of school supplies shows that education, despite available support programs, is still a significant financial burden for many household budgets. In the face of rising expenses, the question is increasingly raised: how long will parents be able to meet these various challenges? Especially since every 12th person in the country is additionally burdened with other obligations, which, worse still, they do not repay on time. These include current utility bills, telephone and internet, rent, alimony, and loans and credits.
The debt of Poles in a year (from June 2023 to June 2024) increased by approximately PLN 4.7 billion to PLN 85.5 billion. And although the number of debtors decreased by 88.4 thousand people, it means that old financial problems are deepening. – It is particularly worrying that the growing amount of debt falls on a more or less constant group of people already in debt. The average debt is also growing dangerously, because there are already PLN 33 thousand in arrears per person, a year earlier it was PLN 30 thousand. This is already an amount difficult to repay for an average earning Pole. However, the positive thing is that the trend of Poles getting into debt has slowed down slightly in the last year – a year earlier we recorded an increase of PLN 5 billion, at that time the number of debtors also increased by almost 11.4 thousand people – the result of, among others, high inflation. Debts and debtors among the youngest generation are also decreasing, while other groups are noting an increase in problems with repaying both credit and non-credit liabilities – indicates Sławomir Grzelczak, president of BIG InfoMonitor
The most indebted age group are people between 45 and 54 years of age – their arrears approached PLN 27 billion in June this year. In turn, the largest number of unreliable debtors are among people from the 34-44 age group – almost 661.5 thousand – according to data collected in the BIG InfoMonitor Debtor Register and the BIK database, which also records delays in loan repayment.
