OPINION:The girl forced to leave a private school may be bad PR for the school but her mother is surely in denial about economic realities, writes ORNA MULCAHY
AN AUNT who has lived outside the country for decades showed a streak of bitterness recently when the subject of her convent school days in Dublin came up.
No, the nuns hadn’t laid a finger on her. It was nothing like that, but there had been money problems.
In a nutshell, my widowed grandmother could not afford to pay the full fees at what was, and still is, one of the most expensive girls’ schools in the country.
The nuns allowed my aunt to stay on at a reduced rate but she remembers the humiliation of being reminded of their “generosity”.
Mean-spirited remarks were made that still rankle more than 60 years on.
Listening to Tuesday’s radio interview with the Alexandra College mother who was so far in arrears with her daughter’s fees that the girl was asked to leave the school, I feared for the 15-year-old girl’s state of mind, now on the eve of her Junior Cert, and in many years’ time when she looks back on this time in her life.
Her mother broadcasting the problem to the nation is not doing her any favours, even if she was only identified on the Gerry Ryan show as “Marian”.
It was heartening to hear that the child’s classmates had stood up for her, had even gone on strike for her in the hope that she would be allowed to return. They had banded together in that near-hysterical way that 15-year-olds do, furious at the injustice of it all.
But these nice middle-class girls do not have a grasp of fiscal reality (just ask any parent who is footing the bill for clothes, make-up and tickets for Wezz on top of those school fees).
Equally detached from reality is the National Parents’ Council which, yesterday, jumped on the bandwagon, insisting that the girl be reinstated at the school.
Is the council offering to pay the €20,000 in boarding and tuition that is owing? No, it is not. Can the school, which offers a top-notch education, afford to waive fees completely? No, it cannot if it is to continue in business.
Private schools like Alexandra College are businesses. Sure they get support from the Government for teachers’ wages, but the fees go towards all the added features that parents who can afford it want for their children – an attractive environment, good facilities and a varied educational and social programme.
Parents who want to send their children to these schools pay a lot from their taxed income for the privilege. The economic slump is putting many of them to the pin of their collars to continue doing so.
Children are quietly being removed from some of the private schools and placed in State schools. Blackrock College is losing pupils to Newpark and suddenly well-heeled matrons are talking about Marian College vs Michael’s.
Marian came across as someone who is in deep denial. She kept telling Gerry how shabbily her daughter had been treated by the school, while not allowing a scintilla of blame to come her way.
Surely, though, this is a parenting issue rather than a schooling issue. Marian enrolled her daughter in a school she could not afford, and when the fee demands rolled around she took up the ostrich position, head firmly in the sand.
She seemed bemused at it all, as if she had been singled out for this cruel treatment, when the reality is that it was her response, or lack of it, that has exposed her child to this painful situation.
Forced to make a statement yesterday, Alexandra College insisted that it tried many avenues to resolve the issue. As with any business, it is likely to have followed procedures. When finally these were exhausted, it said, that’s it, the girl has to go.
Should it have continued to feed, house and educate her when the parent could not pay for any of it?
Is that not akin to a punter sitting down in an expensive restaurant for a slap-up lunch and then getting all confused and resentful when the bill arrives?
Parents at the school are unhappy at the PR disaster, but also, when it comes down to it, at the bare-faced cheek of the parent.
“I feel that the € 7,100 I paid up in full at the start of the year is subventing this child,” said one of the mothers from the class. “There are other parents in difficulties and they are dealing with it in different ways.”
I have heard of a few such cases this week. At one school, parents have clubbed together to subsidise the fees of a child whose family is in financial difficulties. In another case, the grandparents have offered to stump up for the fees until things get better. Other parents have cut a deal with their school for phased or partial payments.
Maybe it is time for fee-paying schools to offer discounts, as other businesses are being forced to do. Cut the frills – the skiing trips and the educational weekends abroad – and put the building programme, dreamed up in the boom, on ice.
That way, it might be possible to offer a 15 or 20 per cent fees reduction to parents, many of whom could do with a break.