With the Start of the school year Over the corner, families must prepare for a spent which can exceed 20,000 pesos per student only in books and useful, without registration and uniforms, according to estimates.
Taking into account school lists of the school year 2025-2026, for a student of Primary room From a mid -range school, it must be available between 2,500 and 7,400 pesos for inputs ranging from pencils and eraser Backpacks.
This budget can increase with the purchase of bookswhich in the cheapest places cost around 2,065 new pesos and up to 1,200 pesos used, in the case of Basic subjects as Spanish, mathematics, social and natural sciences. Therefore, the estimated budget For this school level it would be from 8,693 to 19,376 pesos.
“For how the situation is, I see the Reasonable prices; In addition, I came to take advantage of card offers“said Elizabeth Jiménez, a mother who was buying school supplies during a tour of Free newspaper For local stores.
Jiménez has two children of school age and plans to spend near 8,000 pesos in each one, not counting the didactic materials, but considered that it is an expense “plausible” compared to previous years.
In the case of High school studentswho use less stationery materials, The budget for schoolchildren can amount to 5,700 pesos. If the bookscan be increased to 11,695 or even 16,520 pesos.
Depending on the degree and educational center, the school list includes Literary workscalligraphs, bibles, Language books and humanities.
Geraldine Matos, another mother, commented that she found Good prices Thanks to the discounts In a local store and estimated that he will spend about 40,000 pesos for his two children, adding only useful and books.
The list that the school sent to another father for his children who will study the third of high school and Primary room Round between 19,000 and 20,000 pesos, respectively.
Public Sector
In contrast, students from the public education sector receive uniforms, Backpackssome Notebooks and the booksso the additional tools would correspond to materials such as pencils, storms of storms and zacapuntas. Additionally, they receive a monetary bonus of 1,000 pesos annually.
The book business
A traditional business related to books schoolchildren is the exchange. Informal vendors of the Duarte Commercial Paseo offer parents the option to deliver the used teaching materials of previous years to redeem them for the new ones, with an additional contribution that goes from 500 to 600 pesos.
According to these sellers, this modality It is more convenient for parentssince every year they would spend less on bookswhile for them it represents a greater gain to be able to sell the book used later together with the additional payment.
However, the workbooks do not apply for this exchange, because they are didactic materials that the student must complete, so They cannot be reused.
Inflation in education
Although some parents consider that prices From educational materials are reasonable, economic reality indicates that the Education expense He has suffered one 5.46 % inflation In the last year, the third highest, only surpassed by inflation in alcoholic and tobacco (5.90 %) and diverse goods and services (5.53 %), according to data from the Central Bank.
In addition, in the last five years, the period between June 2022 and June 2023 registered the highest inflation in the education sector, reaching 7.92 %.
Misleading advertising
The National Institute for the Protection of Consumer Rights (Pro Consumer) reported yesterday that it maintains a process of Surveillance and supervision in businesses that sell school supplies, with the aim of preventing misleading advertising.
The executive director of the entity, Eddy Alcántara, explained that these operations seek that the offers comply with the veracity and transparency required by the Law 3658-05 and guarantee that the products sold comply with the announced characteristics.
He warned that the businesses incurred in these practices will be sanctioned with fines or temporary suspension of operations, as established by law. In addition, he urged the population to remain vigilant and report any indication of misleading advertising or bad commercial practices.
