From as early as last Monday there had been clear indications that the week that has come and almost gone with lightning speed would witness a frantic last-minute rush by parents to kit out their children for the new academic year. We can say what we like about the downside of the ninth-hour rush but in numerous cases economic realities require that we understand the economic challenges that the start of a new school year brings for parents.
Liquidity limitations dictate purchasing patterns and what Stabroek Business found out based on our conversations with several parents earlier this week is that purchases for the new school year are made ‘as the money comes in,’ that could mean in dribs and drabs, beginning sometime with the more expensive items – .text books. Sometimes – and again this is a function of liquidity – the purchases begin at the cheaper end.
Whichever way it goes the parents explain the purchases for the new school year are staggered over several pay periods….as many as a dozen for those fortnightly paid workers and three (June, July and August month ends) for monthly paid workers. The week that is almost at an end provides the last opportunity to ensure that the children begin the new school year fully kitted out.
These days there is sometimes the ‘saving grace’ of a subsidy, provided by contributions in cash or kind from relatives abroad; there are box hands too and loans from Credit Unions and sometimes salary advances. What manifests itself in the seeming chaos of the last-minute back-to-school rush by parents is quite often a delicate financial balancing act.
The stationery store Payless is just a stone’s throw from the office of the Stabroek News. As early as Monday it was packed to near capacity with agitated parents and their animated children. Acquisitions of stationery were being preceded by negotiations between the two sides mostly on issues of price, style and durability. These days, it seems that arguments about affordability that used to be trotted out by parents not too many years ago have ‘lost out’ to contemporary counter-arguments about brand name preferences. The children, it seems, holds sway.
At Payless, a store on Wellington street close to Robb street that has grown in popularity for its stationery offerings there was a condition close to commotion for much of the week. Hard-covered notebooks – which now appear to have virtually taken the place of soft-covered exercise books, even at the primary school level – were going fast. Some mothers in the store were agreeing that the prices of the notebooks at this particular store were as good the pavement…if not better.
We sought to get a verdict as to where prices had gone since the end of the last school year. No one seemed particularly sure though a great many mothers were inclined to the view that there may be some measure of substance to public gossip about a decline in money circulation since the general elections earlier this year. We found that some of the established high street stores – like Kirpalani’s – were offering regular exercise books at $540 per dozen whilst the pavement vendors had priced theirs at $600.
