TALK BACK:MANY HARD-pressed parents are being forced to ask fundamental questions about their child's schooling, writes BRIAN MOONEY

• Can we afford to keep our child in a fee-paying school and pay for ongoing grinds at the same time?

• Should our child opt for Transition Year with all its associated costs or just progress directly to the Leaving Cert?

• Can we afford to pay for the school tour this year?

Fee-paying schools are experiencing a growing crisis in funding, with many parents finding it impossible to meet the cost of school fees, never mind all of the extras that are associated with the wider curriculum such schools traditionally offer.

While fee-paying schools are reluctant to confirm this, some have lost up to 20 per cent of their students as the recession takes hold. My advice? Parents must do what is best for their children and for their entire family. There is no easy answer.

The question of whether to allow your child to take Transition Year is one that most families with schoolgoing children will face at some stage. The cost of taking the year can be prohibitive for some, with many programmes adding an additional €1,000 to the family budget.

Because most TY programmes were developed during the good years of the Celtic Tiger, many schools set very ambitious targets for the range of experiences they wished to give students, leading to relatively high costs.

As in all other sectors, schools must re-assess every aspect of the additional costs they impose on parents, including the cost of TY.

Those who have built careers based on a TY programme delivered in school or externally are currently having to cut costs to hold on to their business. Schools also have to see if they can cut the costs of the programme. The combined effect of all these factors should be to reduce the cost to parents.

Given the additional costs involved, is TY still a good option in these more straitened times?

I believe firmly that it is. I can divide my life as a teacher into two distinct halves: pre- and post-TY.

The difference in students’ level of maturity and overall capacity to deal responsibly with the challenges life throws up pre- and post-TY is remarkable.

Today I passed by a computer room in my school in which a group of TY students were teaching computer skills on a one-to-one basis to a group of senior citizens from the local community. Can you imagine the skills both parties are gaining from this experience?

TY allows our young people to discover these talents at a formative age and to weave them into the fabric of their lives. I would advise all parents facing the challenge of supporting a child through TY to dig deep where possible and allow them to experience the wide range of developmental opportunities that most schools offer.

If your financial circumstances are particularly difficult, your school may have a small fund to support your child in taking the programme, so go and talk to them before you decide.

• Brian Mooney is a guidance counsellor at Oatlands College, Stillorgan, Co Dublin