Please keep our school uniforms more uniform

Dear Principal Allschool, I hope you are well, and had a restful break. I am not sure if, during your holiday, you had a chance to read about the Competition Commission's investigation into the R10-billion school-uniform business.

If not, may I suggest you take a look. Now that the new school year is under way, it's an issue parents are not letting go of.

I am one of them.

It might be because it seems to be such a great business - it must be if you can afford to rent space at Hyde Park shopping centre, and we parents are the mugs propping it up.

Most parents don't want to rock the boat. I am not one of them.

So, may I ask why it is necessary for our children to wear so many branded school items: shirts, socks, ties, hats, blazers, jerseys, even swimming costumes, caps and towels.

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You may not be aware of the price difference between the standard fare you can get at many retailers and the branded items available at only a few select school outfitters, so I did a little homework to save you the trouble.

Branded socks at a school outfitters in Johannesburg cost R55 for one pair; at a mass retailer like Woolworths you can buy three pairs of non-branded knee-high grey school socks - sans school stripes - for about R90.

Since my son's socks are never pulled up anyway - all bunched around his ankles - you can't even see the stripes, so can he wear the plain ones?

Likewise a plain white short-sleeved shirt will cost R17.99 at Jet, or R170 for three at Woolies - that is R56.66 for one shirt. Add one small badge and the price, depending on which school outfitters you use, soars to about R165. And as you know, you need more than one shirt.

I contemplated clearing Jet of its stock of school shirts and hoarding them for my sons' entire school careers. But I didn't have the cash flow.

Could my son wear the plain shirt, so that when it comes to the many school fundraisers I may have some spare cash to chip in?

I can't, in all good conscience, pay more than R100 for a scrap of colourful fabric on the shirt's pocket. Especially when my medical aid fees have been hiked 12%, my municipal electricity bill went up by the same rate last year and another increase of 7%, or thereabouts, is coming this year.

Indeed, there is not one expense that I pay regularly that has not increased, in most cases above inflation. This includes school fees - which I must say I do not begrudge because we want to keep our talented teachers and staff, which includes you.

I appreciate the school has an image, a brand to keep up. But is it possible for my child to just wear the branded school hat, branded school jersey, branded school tie and branded blazer?

The blazer alone could set me back at least R600. And he will grow out of it. Or lose it.

Then there is the branded school bag, pencil case and tog bag. Oh, I and haven't even started on the school sports kits.

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I am grateful that you don't want to brand the grey school shorts or school shoes. Oh no, I shouldn't have mentioned that. Please don't.

But I do support you on one matter: that is the idea of a school uniform.

If I think I have a problem now I would have an even bigger headache if my child attended school in civvies.

Then I would have to fend off the influence of big and even more expensive consumer brands and deal with the inevitable peer pressure to be kitted out in the latest fashion.

I suppose there is a lesson in all of this. Find a captive market that has scant choice, sell them a product they cannot do without and you are in the money.

Of course, that is until the Competition Commission comes your way, and then you may be in for a caning.

But while we wait for the results of the commission's inquiry, Principal Allschool, can you please cut us parents some slack.

Respectfully,

Samantha

enslins@sundaytimes.co.za; Enslin-Payne is the deputy editor of Business Times