Johannesburg - Schools will open early next year and to prepare, some parents are already flocking to clothing retailers to buy uniforms.
Parents are already shopping with their children, buying uniforms, and said they did not want to risk misusing money on Christmas shopping; instead, they opted to buy uniforms first.
Schools will open on January 9, more than a week earlier than in previous years.
Parents said they would feel the pinch because no one would have been paid in the first week of the new year.
Zamahlubi Mthimkhulu said her son’s education was more important than any Christmas shopping. She said she would first buy him stationery before she spent anything on food and clothes.
Thokoza Mthimkhulu said she was excited her son would be starting Grade R next year.
She said she had spent less than 45 minutes at the shop, when she would have spent hours in January.
Not only did she beat the long queues, she said, she also did not want to risk the possibility of finding her son’s uniform out of stock during the January rush.
“Parents tend to spend money on ridiculously expensive shoes and clothing brands during the festive season come January there is no money for school uniforms.
“I will have one less thing to worry about, knowing my son has everything he needs for school.
“From here I am going to buy his stationery and then we can start thinking about what we are going to do for the holidays,” she said.
The Living Conditions Survey from Statistics South Africa, which gives an insight into how South Africans spend their income, stated that a household on average spends R2 531 per annum on education. This accounts for 2.45% of the total household consumption expenditure.
Some parents said the announcement that schools would reopen early inconvenienced them.
Thembi Sithole said she would be broke by the time schools opened in January.
“No one would have been paid by then. The current economic situation is not good. We have had so many petrol increases and everything went up.
“The worst was not getting a bonus this time around. In my household, its education first and everything else takes the back seat,” said Sithole.
Her daughter Amanda would be going into Grade 4 next year.
She said that although it was a tradition to buy new clothes during the festive season, she was going to take it easy this year and would pay for priorities first.