Home Schooling !

The number of children being withdrawn from the traditional school system and given education by their parents under a " Home Schooling " regimen is rapidly increasing.  At present there are 3,300 in this state who do not attend traditional schools and they come from 1,964 families.  The Sydney Home Education Network ( SHEN ) reports that the main reason this is happening is because of " unresolved bullying issues " !

Children can be cruel !  A child who is shy or has unusual features can be quickly singled out and subjected to both intimidation and outright physical harm and bullying may not be restricted to the schoolyard.  We live in the age of social media and it is not uncommon for a group of students to " gang up " and relentlessly pursue their victim on Facebook.  In many cases, thoughtless parents either ignore the attacks their sons or daughters are delivering, and sometimes even encourage them.

There is no doubt that extreme bullying can be life threatening.  Withdrawing a child from school, is usually done in desperation if the bullying is driving depression and self harm, or the victim is entertaining thoughts that are suicidal.  Despite action by counsellors and school authorities, their mediation is not guaranteed to bring relief.   Juvenile suicide and " runaways " are an ever present reality in the juvenile world.

Unfortunately, home schooling is unlikely to deliver the balanced experience that prepares children for the working world that awaits them.  Mixing with others is part of the process of gaining " socialization " skills and accumulating the friendship network that is so important in " fitting in " to society.   Without those skills, a growing child is easily intimidated.

There is also a big question mark over the quality of education delivered by home schooling. A parent may be able to adequately teach basic reading, writing and arithmetic, but the schooling system rotates children across a range of specialist teachers who cover in depth subjects, and home schooled children are not eligible to sit for the Higher School Certificate ( HSC ) , hence the opportunities for University are closed to them.

Failing to achieve the HSC is a huge handicap.  The era of " learning on the job " has closed in many professions - and that includes teaching and nursing - and in the future more will require a degree of university.   Those fenced off from higher education are doomed to a life of unskilled jobs - and the lower pay and prospects that delivers.

The biggest deficiency of home schooling is that the pupil is limited to the skill knowledge of the parent/teacher.  Even if that person is highly skilled and a university graduate it is unlikely that he or she will have the broad spectrum covered by the range of teachers to which children are exposed in the formal education system, and it is even more unlikely that the parent would have kept updated on the progress that is constant in each of those academic areas.

All the more reason to make home schooling an absolute last resort.  We need to increase the effort to seek out the source of social bullying in the school system and take steps to shut it down.  That is time consuming - and expensive, but unless we grasp the nettle and give it high priority the numbers involved in home schooling will quickly spin out of control.