2023-08-16 21:14:12
“We are seeing a heavy impact of inflation,” summarized Johan Jousseaume, confederal secretary in charge of education at the Confédération Syndicale des Familles (CSF), during a press conference.
According to a study published on Wednesday and conducted by the CSF with 109 member families of this Confederation, the cost of school supplies is up 11.3% at the start of the 2023 school year, for students in elementary school, college and high school.
This report was published the same day as the payment of the back-to-school allowance (ARS), which helps low-income parents pay for schoolbags and other supplies. The amounts have been revalued by 5.6% compared to the premium paid in the summer of 2022.
According to the CSF, the average cost of a complete list of supplies at the start of the 2023 school year amounts to 233 euros for a pupil in primary school, once morest 190 euros in 2022 (+23%), 371 euros for a middle school student (+3 .5%) and 427 euros for a high school student (+3.1%).
Clothing and sports equipment represent the most affected expenditure items with an increase of 12%, while the cost of stationery increased by 25%.
To compensate for this increase, families often choose to reuse school supplies from previous years.
“36% of school supplies in elementary school are reused”, points out Annie Giroud, in charge of the education sector at the CSF.
According to the GfK institute, at the end of July 2023, on an average price paid of 3.36 euros per item of school supplies, 0.25 euro increase is explained by inflation.
For its part, last July, UFC-Que Choisir announced a 10% increase in the price of school supplies between July 2022 and July 2023.
Faced with this surge in prices, Olivia Grégoire, Minister Delegate in particular for Trade, had seized the General Directorate for Consumption and the repression of fraud, the DGCCRF, to investigate “the price increases of school supplies”.
This Bercy service will have to “check on the side of the large distribution what is done, (beyond) the simple passing on of the prices” of the market, in favor of consumers, in particular at the time of the promotions at the end of August, had specified in July the office of Mrs Grégoire to AFP.
The federation of parents of FCPE students asks on Wednesday in a press release that the government “go further” with in particular the constitution of a working group on the subject in September.
“More than worrying”
For students, the cost of the start of the school year reaches more than 3,000 euros on average per student, a historic level, alarmed Wednesday the Fage (Federation of general student associations), which publishes its indicator of the cost of the start of the university year.
“The finding is more than worrying”, estimates the federation, which calculates that the start of the 2023 academic year will cost 3,024 euros per student, once morest 2,889 euros the previous year (according to the new calculation methodology applied in 2023).
“This historic development is mainly due to the impact of the social and geopolitical crisis which results in record inflation,” notes the student organization.
On Monday, the student union Unef had published its own assessment, which provides for an increase in the cost of student living of 6.47% for the year 2023-2024.
Published each year, the Fage indicator estimates the cost of the start of the school year for a typical 20-year-old student enrolled in a bachelor’s degree at university, without a scholarship.
“Students are indeed not spared, and that is why we have put half a billion euros for this start of the school year, with a historic increase in scholarships”, recalled Sylvie Retailleau, Minister of Education. higher, Wednesday on France Inter. It must announce “at the start of the academic year” the timetable for a future “structural reform of scholarships”.
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