When Students' Homes Are Their Schools
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday July 31, 1995
TEACHING students at home in Australia is usually associated with bush settings where teachers and students communicate via laptops and radios rather than blackboards and books.
But since changes in 1990 made home schooling an option for families, a new breed of home schoolers has emerged as growing numbers of parents chose to educate their children at home.
Unlike distance education or open high school, home schooling has gained a strong following in urban areas.
There are no packages of assignments sent out or teachers at the other end of a modem. Instead parents and students map out their own teaching and learning programs, make provisions to record student achievement and progress, find their own curriculum resources and implement their programs.
Parents can buy relevant syllabuses and support documents but are responsible for their child's education.
Home schoolers must be approved for registration by the Board of Studies and have to include the key learning areas in primary and secondary school in their study programs.
But apart from an occasional visit from board liaison officers, families are in charge of their own classroom.
A board liaison officer, Grant Prowse, said some parents who applied for registration did not understand the nature of home schooling and confused it with distance education. He said that once parents realised they were responsible for developing their own teaching and support materials, some decided not to undertake the program.
"With home schooling nothing is sent to the home, it is developed at home," he said. "They say, I didn't understand this. I thought programs would be sent home."
Mr Prowse, a liaison officer for more than five years who has visited hundreds of homes, said board officers took into account the child's social and education development when visiting families. But he said he had never had cause to be overly concerned about a child's emotional welfare.
"I stand in awe of some of these parents - both as an authorised person and a parent myself," he said.
Students registered for home schooling are not automatically eligible for the School Certificate or the HSC. But from this year, home school students can sit the HSC as self-tuition students through the Pathways program.
Since 1991, the number of home schoolers has increased from 250 to 1,195 this year, with more families awaiting official registration, according to Board of Studies figures.
The figures show the largest block of students come from the metropolitan west region with 175 students from 106 families. This is followed by 171 students from 100 families in the State's west, 165 students from 98 students on the South Coast and 149 students from 87 families from the North Coast of the State.
Home Schoolers Australia co-ordinator Jo-Anne Beirne said most parents chose to home-school because they believed it was the best thing for their children.
She said NSW has one of the best systems in Australian with clear guidelines and praised the Board of Studies for acting respectfully and responsibly.
"They (parents) believe they can provide their children with an education that is different from what happens in the school system," she said. "It is more directed to the needs of the individual children."
Ms Beirne said home schoolers had to be very resourceful to take on home schooling and provide the equipment and resources students took for granted in schools. This could mean using public libraries, museums and community facilities to meet children's educational needs.
Critics of home schooling often point to the lack of contact with other children and limited contact with a range of people. But Ms Beirne said that while students undertook education at home they were still part of the community. She said home schoolers were very aware of the need for socialisation and some parents even over-compensated. "Home schoolers spend time socialising and often have more time to do that," she said.
© 1995 Sydney Morning Herald
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