Millions of children around the world are having their first taste of homeschooling during the lockdowns meant to curb the spread of Covid-19.
This has led to new debates on the efficacy of homeschooling, and its advantages and disadvantages over traditional schooling.
It is worth examining the positions various countries have taken and their reasons for doing so, as it offers lessons for South Africa moving forward.
In our country, homeschooling was illegal during the apartheid era, but today it is emerging as a preferred option of some families.
South Africa is one of the most regulated countries for home educators, where parents have to register their intention to home educate their children and have to follow an approved curriculum. Parents need to provide records of a child’s progress and proof of their end of year assessment, and evidence that they have achieved the required grade for their age at the end of grades 3,6, and 9.
It is estimated that 100 000 -150 000 children are being homeschooled in South Africa. Some of the reasons given by parents doing so is the perception that the quality of public education has declined, and spaces for those with special needs have dwindled.
By contrast, in countries like
Germany, Sweden and Cyprus, home-schooling is illegal. In Germany,
parents who homeschool their
children may be fired or lose their jobs, or their children forcibly taken to school by police, or taken into care by social services.
The reason Germany has taken
this position is to “avoid closed off parallel societies”.
In Japan, homeschooling is an emerging trend. Business groups have contemplated diversified strategies to deal with failure and drop-out rates, and curricula materials have been translated and spread among homeschooling families.
Both Canada and the US have significant numbers of children being homeschooled due to overcrowded classrooms, inflexible curricula, children with special needs, and problems with discipline.
The US alone has 2 million homeschoolers, and each state has its own rules about regulations.
In France, education, but not school, is compulsory for ages 6-16, and learners are able to do classes by correspondence. Looking at some of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Arica) countries, in Brazil homeschooling has emerged as a new modality of education as families feel it meets their values and beliefs. There is a real problem of violence at schools in Brazil, and the lack of flexibility of teaching in different geographical regions remains a problem.
In China, families are choosing to homeschool as they are dissatisfied with traditional teaching in schools. Some parents have said they disagree with the school evaluation system, which they perceive as exhausting and stressful for children.
Advocates of homeschooling cite the need in today’s society for creativity, inventiveness and innovation, which some believe are often eroded in conventional schooling. Others will, of course, argue the opposite.
* Ebrahim is Independent group foreign editor