More families choosing to homeschool their children
Growing numbers of parents are educating their children at home. In New South Wales more than 12-thousand students are registered for home schooling, which is a 37 per cent increase on last year. Queensland has also seen a rise and the state government is considering tighter regulations.
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00:00 I think there are a confluence of factors that are affecting this rise in homeschooling.
00:06 In many cases, the child will have some kind of mental ill health, perhaps they'll have
00:09 a diagnosis of autism or ADHD, and bullying features really frequently in all of the research
00:15 data.
00:16 Is it also a case of coming out of COVID?
00:19 Look, I think COVID was one of those bizarre experiences that we all had that opened the
00:24 door for a lot of parents.
00:26 They were in their child's classroom with their child for the first time, able to see
00:30 what was going on.
00:31 And also, they were able to see the kind of work that was being done, so they could see
00:35 that they could do it themselves.
00:36 And I think that really was a bit of a shot in the arm.
00:38 Yes, indeed.
00:39 Okay.
00:40 And so what are some of the requirements on parents to prove their schooling is adequate
00:46 if they go down this path?
00:47 Jo, there are lots of different requirements, and they vary state by state.
00:51 In Queensland, where I am, for example, you have to produce a plan and report every 12
00:56 months at the 10 month mark.
00:58 And you're supposed to use samples to show what the child has learnt.
01:01 In New South Wales, which is the biggest state, there is an authorised person who represents
01:06 the government who comes out and looks at what you're doing, has a chat to you about
01:10 your child's program, approves a program for the following years, and then maybe has a
01:15 conversation with the child.
01:17 In Victoria, you exempt yourself from school, basically, and you say that you will submit
01:22 to an audit if they require you to do one.
01:24 But they're the three main ways of doing things.
01:27 And so how rigorous is that oversight?
01:30 And are many parents denied homeschooling because it's found that their plans are inadequate?
01:37 I don't really know about the denial of homeschooling plans.
01:40 Generally, they're quite low from what I've seen of the data from the states.
01:44 I think it's really interesting, Jo, to understand that homeschooling doesn't look anything like
01:49 school.
01:50 And the reason, for example, that we report the way that we do in schools as an ex teacher,
01:54 is because the parents aren't in the room with you.
01:56 And it's a requirement for you to show the parents what the child has learned in relation
02:00 to the Australian curriculum.
02:02 Homeschooling parents don't have to follow the Australian curriculum that's written for
02:05 schools and for teachers.
02:08 So the parent being in the room with the child doesn't really require a report because they
02:11 can see if the child can use analogue clocks or count to 12.
02:15 And so what's the evidence about whether homeschooled kids receive adequate education?
02:22 Most of the research data on how well homeschooled children do, and I guess we're talking really
02:26 about academics here, comes from overseas, where all of the research findings suggest
02:31 that those children do as well as children in mainstream schools do.
02:36 And so what do you think about the existing regime?
02:39 Could it be improved?
02:41 I think in Queensland, the best way to improve what we do up here would be to follow the
02:45 Victorian New South Wales Tasmanian model, where we have a kind of panel, which works
02:50 with government to plan policies that meet homeschoolers' needs.
02:55 Most people who work in those departments aren't ex-homeschoolers, they're people who
02:59 have been teachers in schools like me.
03:01 And it's a really different experience homeschooling your child.
03:03 So to have parents with experience of homeschooling in all of its multitude of iterations would
03:08 be really helpful, I think, for governments to better understand exactly what that community
03:13 needs.
03:14 I think we would find actually that compliance would improve a lot, particularly in a state
03:17 like Queensland, where compliance is actually quite low.
03:21 And would you like to see it expanded, or do you think it's at a reasonable level at
03:26 the moment?
03:27 It has a very state by state.
03:29 So it's really difficult to say if it needs to be expanded or reduced.
03:33 I think Queensland would be happier, parents in Queensland would be happier to register
03:37 and work with government if they felt it wasn't a punishment to have to work with government.
03:42 But I think in New South Wales and Victoria, working with parents seems to be a really
03:46 effective system.
03:47 [BLANK_AUDIO]