As students prepare to go back to school this month, many parents say they can’t afford to buy their children uniforms or school supplies, with high inflation and rising costs of living pushing families to the brink.
”The challenge with free education is it doesn’t cover uniforms, it doesn’t cover subject levies – it leads to families choosing cheap subjects,” he said. The organisation said there has been a 14 per cent increase in welfare applications this financial year. When comparing December 2022 with the previous December, it was a 103.7 per cent increase in welfare applications.“Our financial hardship category has also increased by 82.54 per cent for the month of December, from 2423 applications in 2021, to a huge 4423 in Dec 2022,” State Schools’ Relief CEO Sue Karzis said.
All three of her children have autism and her youngest also has DiGeorge syndrome, which can cause learning difficulties.