This article explores the historical beginnings and evolution of Homeschooling as an alternative educational framework to traditional schooling methods. Further, the future of homeschooling is explored within the context of India and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The field of education has historically been understood from the lens of schooling in classrooms. Prior to modern developments in the field of education, children were predominantly educated by their parents. The industrial revolution at the turn of the 19th century led to the creation of public schools. United States of America was among the first countries to draft and implement legislation to mandate attendance to these schools (Cook et al., 2013). Over the last 120 years, as theory and pedagogy in education evolved over time, the phenomenon of schooling developed into the fundamental system of education that is visible across the world today.
However, as deeper analysis and understanding towards education systems developed, a new pedagogy towards schooling began to take root in the West. Stakeholders across educational institutions began to question the purpose, outcomes and structure of the now traditional schooling system. At the forefront of this fledgling education revolution was John Holt, an American educator, who published a number of books about the failures of the public schooling system in the early 1960s. John Holt argued that schools were doing more harm than good to children’s learning, particularly in terms of how schools would classify and segregate students in classrooms (Davis, 2011). Holt’s views on education outside of schools would lay the foundation for homeschooling and unschooling pedagogies for the following decades (Davis, 2011). This article focuses specifically on homeschooling and a growing sense of positivity towards this form of alternative education, including a brief overview of its growing acceptance in developing countries like India.
Homeschooling exists as an alternative approach to education in contrast to traditional schooling systems. “Homeschooling can be defined as the elective practice whereby children are educated directly under the personal oversight of their parents, often, though not exclusively, by their parents and usually in a home setting” (Donnelly, 2012). While homeschooling is by no means a Western phenomenon or invention, the dominance of Western education systems across the world creates a hegemonic discourse around the growth and development of homeschooling. However, it must be noted that the Western countries were among the first to formulate education policies with respect to homeschooling as an alternative to public education (Donnelly, 2012).
The motivations of parents to adopt this style of education are varied and cannot be simplified in generic terms due to the non-structured approach of homeschooling itself. However, considering the context of homeschooling in the United States of America, there are some key factors that have influenced parents into opting for homeschooling. One of the major issues with public schooling was the ‘one size fits all’ approach that propagated across the system, an approach that made it difficult for special needs students to integrate into schooling systems (Cook et al., 2013). This forced parents of children with special needs to opt more into homeschooling to accommodate for the needs of their child, something which public schooling is unable to provide for (Cook et al., 2013). Other motivating factors can be related to a child’s mental/physical health, a desire to provide religious education that may not be in the curriculum of public schools, concern about the quality of the schooling environment or general dissatisfaction with traditional approaches to education (Donnelly, 2012). These perspectives and attitudes are predominantly focused on the Western notion of homeschooling. Non-Western approaches to homeschooling, such as the Indian context, present a different contextual background through which the phenomenon can be observed.
In India, homeschooling has seen a rise in recent years despite the lack of explicit education laws or regulations regarding it as an alternative form of education. This complementary legal freedom towards this type of schooling has been received rather unquestioningly thus far. Homeschooling as a concept has been neither specifically addressed nor dismissed under the various laws regarding Indian education, which leaves it in a cloud of uncertainty but at the same time gives it a certain freedom, as it is not restricted by legal limitations (de Beer et al., 2020). The limited scientific data available on this topic, specific to the Indian context, is a reflection of its structural deficiency, which has not necessarily been considered problematic by those that have chosen to adopt this alternative form of education. While the reasons for parents choosing to homeschool their children may range from financial inability to geographical instability, in India, one of the primary reasons remains to be the general dissatisfaction with the present education system in the country (Sinha, 2016). It is in response to this idea that parents have approached homeschooling for the freedom it permits regarding content and pace of learning for children.
In India, the Right to Education Act, 2009 (RTE) recognizes that parents have the right to choose the kind of alternative form of education for their children if they decide against mainstream schooling (India, 2019). Providing additional support to the cause, the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), India, initiated in 1989, allows for homeschooled children to take examinations that are recognized as credible for further admission to universities in India. Previously, the reasons for children being homeschooled were mostly attributed to behavioural or learning incapacities and while the validity of the NIOS certification was taken into consideration for admission into universities, the preference was towards students from mainstream schooling experiences (Srinivas, 2021). The past few years, however, have seen an increase in the number of international examination boards that have begun to recognize homeschooling as a valid form of education, where students are permitted to register as private candidates to take the examinations, although at an increased fee (Desikan, 2013). This has broadened the scope of opportunities for homeschoolers’ further education outside the country and there has been a marginal increase in the number of families from urban areas, who have been exposed to these various options, choosing homeschooling as an alternative form of education (Kaushik, 2021). The conscious preference of homeschooling by a mixed social class of people has seen a shift from it functioning as a necessity for a reserved group of children to a favoured form of education that can benefit any child.
Donnelly (2012) stated that homeschooling provides the flexibility that mainstream schooling cannot afford to, with parents predominantly preferring child-centred approaches to learning while at the same time choosing what not to include in a child’s learning. But while the lack of a fixed curriculum is seen as an advantage, it is also an area of concern for parents who choose to homeschool their children. The process of keeping up with the energy levels, while choosing concepts that keep up the motivation levels of homeschooled children is an activity that influences parents’ abilities to continue to provide the support that the process of homeschooling requires (de Beer et al., 2020). Parental fear associated with the inability to provide the intended educational standards to their children has often been a reason in cases where parents have chosen to shift back to conventional systems of learning after attempts at homeschooling (Zhao & Badzis, 2014). Another challenge that has been attributed to homeschooling in the past has been the concern over homeschooled children’s lack of social interactions, a process that is considered crucial of the conventional schooling practice (Zhao & Badzis, 2014). Although this view has been widely implied, it has been refuted by both parents and children that are involved in the homeschooling process, who seem to rather value the kind of inter-generational learning that takes place through a variety of interactions as a result of this unstructured form of learning.
The Covid-19 pandemic shifted formal education from schools to homes and thus changed how parents were involved in the learning process (Singh, 2021). It has fundamentally altered the structure of education around the world over the course of the last two years. Children began to attend lessons from the comfort of their own homes, with classes being conducted through remote technological tools such as Zoom. In a sense, the shift in learning styles that occurred during pandemic can be attributed to a form of homeschooling due to the nature of where the learning was occurring. However, by observing this phenomenon through Donnelly’s (2012) definition of homeschooling mentioned above, it becomes apparent that while the place of learning may have moved into the homes of children, the actual process of education was more traditional due to the dependence on schooling curriculum and pedagogies.
With schooling becoming predominantly online, issues of technology, infrastructure and economic divide have become even more pronounced within the school systems, which teachers have struggled to address through remote teaching. Parents have begun to take note of the lack of pedagogical flexibility employed by teachers in delivering content in an online environment (Fontenelle-Tereshchuk, 2021). This phenomenon has become even more pronounced in online classrooms, where teachers employ the aid of parents in delivering content to students, with parents becoming increasingly overburdened while attempting to balance their professional responsibilities with the academic and emotional needs of their children (Fontenelle-Tereshchuk, 2021). Fontenelle-Tereshchuk (2021) highlighted the growing responsibilities of parents involved in education as a key factor in increased criticism of modern schooling practices and pedagogies. As parents have become exposed to the limitations of mainstream schooling, the pandemic has consequently seen a larger proportion in the number of families opting to move their children to alternative forms of learning, such as homeschooling (Musaddiq, Stange, Bacher-Hicks, & Goodman, 2021).
While homeschooling has historically been seen as an off-branch attempt to escape the hegemonic structures of public schooling, the COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly changed this notion. Particularly in countries where Western approaches towards education have severely limited student growth in classrooms (such as India) homeschooling is now being seen as an alternative to traditional schooling paradigms. Parents’ increased engagement in teaching, along with the awareness of alternative forms of education as viable options, have been responsible for the changing attitudes towards homeschooling in societies that otherwise did not consider this form of education as an option. While there still do remain risks attached to this form of alternative education, parents are becoming increasingly drawn to the freedom and flexibility that homeschooling can provide to the academic and emotional wellbeing of their children.
References
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