Home education grows up

While home education will never be embraced by the majority of parents, it is a viable, necessary and successful alternative to mainstream schooling. It represents a totally different approach to learning - one based on inspiring children to learn rather than forcing them to do so. Dr Alan Thomas found that:

Most families who start out “doing school” at home find that what works in school does not transfer easily to the home. Of necessity home educators find themselves pioneering new educational approaches, nearly always less formal ones.

Under the existing regulatory regime, home educators are required to provide regular and efficient instruction and can be prosecuted if they fail to do so. This in itself represents a significant commitment by the parents both in terms of time and, for many, in lost income due to the need to have one parent at home.

The Victorian state government’s new Education Bill proposes that home education will be regulated by a newly created statutory body, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA). Neither the registration criteria nor the regulations are spelt out in the legislation. Instead, the VRQA will be granted unlimited power over home educators. The new proposals create the possibility for the VRQA not just to ensure that education is taking place but to dictate the manner of that education. Are home educators to be lumbered with the “edubabble” endemic in the Victorian Essential Learning Frameworks? Instead of inspiring a love of learning home educators may find themselves thwarted by reams of bureaucratic paperwork.

If the Victorian Education Department had been granted such unlimited power in the past, many highly successful home education stories would have been prevented.

Whilst Geoff and Levina Snow are proud of their children’s academic achievements and that they will be lifelong learners - willing and able to research whatever they want to know, they conclude, “We are more proud that they are great young adults who behave well and will be the backbone of future society that is often reported so bleakly”.