Ben Kepes on making good, and observing from afar
2 Feb, 2021 04:26 AM
4 minutes to read
As a society, we should value teachers, nurses and social workers far higher than we do. Photo / 123RF
As a society, we should value teachers, nurses and social workers far higher than we do. Photo / 123RF
NZ Herald
OPINION: I was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an exemplary pupil at school. While I was blessed with a reasonable level of intelligence, I was more interested in applying that intelligence to things other than scholastic pursuits. In particular, smuggling illicitly-acquired vodka into school in Tupperware containers was a bit of a personal penchant.
Opinion
Incensed by yet another sky-high school uniform bill, father-of-three Dylan Reeve tries to get to the bottom of the school uniform racket.
For New Zealand parents, the end of January tends to mark the end of one nightmare – the seemingly endless summer school holidays – and the beginning of another: new uniform-stationery-and-shoes season.
The vast majority of New Zealand’s intermediate and high schools require a uniform. This uniform is usually only available from a single specialist retailer and for many parents it will be among the most expensive basic clothing items they will purchase for their little darlings.
But just how expensive? Even at lower decile public schools, the bill can stretch well into the hundreds. I put a call out on Twitter and got numbers back ranging from around $250 to around $1,000. And that’s not including the inevitable winter uniform which many parents were putting off purchasing.
“I logged on about five past one, and saw ‘view status update,’ so I clicked view, and it said ‘congratulations, welcome to Harvard’. “I was a bit excited, I ran across to my brother and was like ‘Matthew!’ and he didn’t understand, he’s five.” Four days later the news was still sinking in, but she felt it probably wouldn’t become real until she heard what financial aid she would receive from Harvard. “I’m just really hopeful I’ll be able to get a full scholarship, because frankly I actually can’t go without it.” Undergraduate tuition and living costs totalled about NZ$102,000 in the current academic year, but the university operates a financial aid scheme based on need. Families with students on scholarship pay an average of $20,000 annually towards the cost of a Harvard education, but some pay none at all.