Feature: Turkish parents stressed about back-to-school spending amid high inflation

by Burak Akinci
ANKARA, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) — It is an expensive time of the year for inflation-weary Turkish parents who are trying hard to make sure that their children have what they need in the classroom.
In Türkiye, schools will reopen on Sept. 9, reuniting millions of students with their schoolmates, which brings a series of costs for families.
Searching for supplies, they will browse through adjacent department stores in the neighborhood bustling with in-store events, hoping to find good deals — from pens and papers to everything in between to amuse the children.
“Frankly, panic and hardship fill every household on the eve of a new school year,” Derya Aslan, a mother of two children aged 12 and 15, told Xinhua following her back-to-school shopping in a big supply shop in capital Ankara’s Altindag district.
The stay-at-home mom, already on a shoestring budget due to high inflation, complained that the cost of living has affected her children’s back-to-school list, as she has to shorten it to include nothing but the essentials.
“Unfortunately, prices are increasing daily, and there is a significant difference in our shopping compared to last year. This is especially affecting low-income families,” she said.
Shoes and school uniforms, which most Turkish students wear in classes, are big-ticket items, on top of which is the more expensive school transportation resulting from repeated gasoline price hikes, she said.
Türkiye has been struggling with rising inflation and one of the worst cost-of-living crises of its history.
Following the implementation of a tight monetary policy and austerity measures since the summer of 2023, the country’s inflation cooled to a nine-month low of 61.78 percent in July. The government projected in early August that annual inflation would ease to 40 percent by the end of the year.
Nevertheless, prices for most goods remain elevated and keep rising, putting additional pressure on struggling families.
As economic hardships continue, it is becoming more and more difficult for parents to prepare their children for a new school year, said Kadem Ozbay, head of the Turkish Labor Union of the Labourers of Education and Science.
“The exorbitant increase in education costs seriously hits the budgets of families,” Ozbay told the country’s private ANKA news agency on Aug. 22, adding that the price hikes of school supplies exceed official inflation figures.
Stationery is the top spending category for back-to-school shopping, followed by clothing and books, he said.
For Mesut Ozturk, owner of a big supply store in Altindag, high inflation is turning back-to-school shopping a “burden” for families rather than a joyful experience.
School supply prices have surged by some 50 percent compared to last year, Ozturk told Xinhua. “It is a considerable increase.”
“The cost for one student could be up to 3,500 Turkish lira (about 103 U.S. dollars), which includes a backpack and a water bottle. If you want to include trendy items in your list, you will have to spend double this amount,” he said.
According to the Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (Turk-Is), one of the four major national trade union centers in Türkiye, the current minimum wage in the country is 17,002 Turkish lira monthly (about 500 dollars), which is already below 18,980 lira, the hunger threshold defined as the amount of money that a family of four living in Ankara needs to spend for healthy and balanced nourishment.
Under such circumstances, the back-to-school spending could be havoc for more than half of Türkiye’s workforce, a scale that Turk-Is found is condemned to earn the minimum wage.
“It is unlikely that people can find any good deals anymore, and unfortunately, an ordinary pencil or an eraser is nowadays considered expensive,” Ozturk said. ■