Would you rather home-school your children or offer regular schooling?

During the lockdown two years ago when schools closed due to the pandemic, parents and children were grounded at home so some parents chose to venture into homeschooling their children.

After the quarantine was lifted, children returned to regular school but some parents had learnt to homeschool their children so they kept them home and schooled them there.  

The home schooling movement began in the United States in the 1970s.

Advocates for it argued that formal schools turned children into compliant employees. Others argued that early education is detrimental to children below eight or nine years of age.

Over time, many people have embraced it across the world including Uganda though it is still limited in knowledge and scope to a few elites.  

Before colonialists came to Uganda, enculturation was the main way ethnic groups passed on knowledge to their youth until the 1890s when formal education was introduced in Uganda by the Church Mission Society.

Currently, the education system is seven years of primary school, six years of secondary school, and three to five years of tertiary education. 91 percent of children are enrolled at the primary level, and 27 percent at the secondary level, going by the 2021 Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) statistics.

Statistics for homeschooling are unknown but what is known is that parents are embracing it. Does home-schooling have many advantages over traditional, regular schooling? Here may be some reasons:    

Fosters parent-child relationship:

Through homeschooling, a parent develops a close relationship with their children because the teacher-student ratio is very small maybe 1:1 or 1:2 or 1:3 compared to the traditional schools especially public schools where the ratios may be 1:50 or 1:100 or even more.

The advantage with smaller ratios is that it allows for the parent to have a small caseload of children and engage in developing them in the totality of their unique person where teaching and learning are happening at the same time unlike in a regular school where teaching may be happening but learning may not.

Protection:

A child in home school is shielded from bullying, peer pressure, stigma, and prejudices because they are studying from home unlike in regular schools.    

Liberty:

A parent can schedule class times, and co-curricular activities on the curriculum according to a child’s passions rather than in regular schools where a child is arbitrarily crammed into a class to learn things where theirmay not have an interest. 

Controlled environment:

A parent is intentional with homeschooling and controls the learning environment than in a regular school where they have no control.

Think of it as a greenhouse. A parent can develop a particular skill they see in their child.

For instance, for specially gifted children, homeschooling is their best option: Thomas Edson (perfected the electric bulb), Alexander Graham Bell (invented the telephone), Condoleezza Rice (former US Secretary of State), Elias Howe (invented the sewing machine), US presidents; Franklin D. Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln among others, Venus and Serena Williams (tennis stars), to mention but a few, came through homeschools. 

Also, children with learning disorders such as Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, dysphagia, autism, or other learning difficulties, for children in special learning circumstances such as traveling families, families with challenging work schedules, children who are slow learners, homeschooling allows them the leisure of learning at their own pace without the rigorous demands of regular classes.  

Additionally, some parents do not agree with regular school curriculum considering it to be secular and against their Christian beliefs choosing to put their children in a controlled Christian environment which homeschooling provides.

Deo and Anne Neema Beresi are such like parents.

“Homeschooling is biblical; it is the responsibility of parents to teach their children according to Deuteronomy 6:6-9. We chose Christian Light Education for our son because, one - we are Christians and two - academics must glorify God not oppose Him as is currently with various scientific theories taught in regular schools.”

Cost-saving on time and money:

 Homeschooling can save money on school uniforms, school fees, and time spent traveling daily to and from school in traffic jams to drop or pick up the children.

Also, parents who want an international education for their children but do not have the money can opt for an international school and can opt for homeschooling as an equivalent.

That said, some people will argue that regular school is better than homeschooling because;

Normal learning curve:

Regular school caters to the average child and these are the majority. 

Clear division of labour:

School teachers are professionals whose job is to teach an acumen most parents lack. A parent trying to be a teacher at the same time in homeschooling can be overwhelming. In some cases, one of the parents must sacrifice to be the full-time teacher, who has to contextualize the study materials from a foreign culture to ours for their child to understand, a task that a parent with a child in a regular school does not have to perform. In a regular school, a parent is a parent and a teacher is a teacher. Period. 

Affordable costs:

Costs associated with regular public schools are manageable for most parents, especially where the government subsidises their tuition, and provides academic materials like textbooks freely unlike in homeschooling where a parent has to order hard book copies from abroad which may take a long time in arriving and can be expensive with an ever-increasing dollar rate.

Social interactions:

Children in regular schools enjoy high levels of socialisation than children who homeschool. As a result, they get to know how to connect, cope, adapt, and survive in different and challenging environments, a skill they will need in the marketplace.  

Academic competition:

Some children need an environment where there is competition for them to be able to see how they stuck up against others in the same system and the regular school provides this. Sometimes the standard of measurement of academic ability is skewed in the wrong direction but this does not negate the fact that there is competition the world over in all areas of life.  

Systematic organisation:

Regular learning has a formality about it that homeschooling may not match: “In a good regular school, you will find they have many learning facilities, a conducive environment, favorable classrooms, well organised co-curricular activities, and a systematic school curriculum, that enhance learning for a child” says Enoth Kwikiriza, a parent and former primary school head teacher.      

Regardless of whatever system you choose for your child, there is always room for him/her to succeed. Support them and see them fly.