No doubt many parents did fill out the form: according to a report by the Chief Inspector John Seitz to the Minister of Public Instruction in 1934, approximately one-third of students who were liable for fees received fee exemptions.²³ But, whether out of fear of being branded needy by the Education Department, or not wanting to jump through bureaucratic hoops, many others wrote directly to the school to request leniency with the fees. The correspondence files for 1933 and 1934 are littered with letters to the headmaster - many of them asking for extra time to pay the fees because of financial difficulties. Mr Kaufmann, for instance, writes on 19 February 1934 to ask for an extension of time to pay the fees for his sons Norman and Ronald because his wages had been 'considerably reduced owing to the depression'.

Others asked for fee reductions rather than an exemption. Mrs Olive Greig of Shaftsbury Parade, Thornbury asked for a reduced fee for her son Edward, explaining that her husband was unemployed, leaving her and her children to support the family. Ignoring her request for a reduction, the Department curtly refused free tuition.²⁴

In many cases, however, parents responded by withdrawing their children from the school altogether. As Wendy Lowenstein points out in Weevils in the flour, an oral history of the Depression in Australia, it was often easier for teenagers in a family to get jobs, at a fraction of the adult wage, than adults.²⁵ To have children at school at this time thus represented a double sacrifice: not only were the parents required to come up with a considerable amount of money in fees, books and uniforms, they were also sacrificing the possible income these children could have earned at the time.

Given that the term fee of £3 represented as much as the weekly wage for many families, it is unsurprising that much of the correspondence during 1933 and 1934 consists of parents asking for refunds for children who had left school. Few requests were granted. In early 1933 Mr JJ Jeffrey of Ivanhoe asked for a refund when his son, who had 'only returned to school as he could not get employment', left again within weeks when he 'secured a position'. His request was refused on the grounds that the school was required to employ teachers on the basis of its enrolment figures and could not be expected to give refunds to students who left once the school year had begun.²⁶

Other times the school was more generous. In June 1934 Samuel C Burgess of Croxton wrote that his son had obtained a position and thus requested a refund of his £2 fee, as 'I have had very little work for the last months and I have had difficulty getting the amount'. In this case the headmaster recommended refunding half the fee, 'as Mr Burgess is a boot employee and his work is not continuous'.²⁷

By 1934, enrolment numbers at Northcote High School had dropped to 406, with just 98 students in year 9 - half as many as in 1931. In year 10, student numbers were 68, down from 154 in 1931.²⁸ In May 1933 the situation was serious enough to warrant a deputation from the school to the inspector of secondary schools, Mr Seitz, 'to obtain relief regarding the present scale of fees because of cases of children being withdrawn from the school'. Mr Seitz, while sympathetic, the council minutes reported, could not grant exemption from the fees.²⁹

Another deputation in December 1933 was informed that there was very little prospect of such a reduction for at least twelve months. In March 1934 the headmaster Mr FW Johnson reported that 'there had been a falling off of new scholars from the state schools due to the difficulty of parents in meeting the increased fees'.³⁰

Between 1930 and 1934 the number of secondary school enrolments across Victoria is estimated to have fallen by more than 10 per cent.³¹ At Northcote the drop-off was more like 22 per cent.

According to some commentators, the Depression put the cause of secondary education in Victoria back by around fifteen years.³² It wasn't until after the Second World War that fees were finally abolished in Victorian secondary schools and secondary education became available to all children.

For children like Stanley West, Keith Stanton and Edward Greig, the Depression spelled the end of their, or their parents', hopes for their further education. Like the thousands of other students from Northcote High School and other secondary schools across the state, their lives would be affected forever by the combination of one of the harshest financial periods in history and a system that preserved secondary schooling as a privilege rather than a right.