The last two years of Covid Pandemic has revealed to me and many of us that coming together of students in one campus called school is not mandatory for education. Many of you might also have noticed by being present in the online sessions with your kid that you can do this job in a much better way. So if a doubt has started creeping in you about the whole school system, you may explore the possibility of home-schooling your child. The schools will never let you believe that you can do it for very obvious reason.Who wants to commit financial hara-kiri and who wants to strangulate one’s vested interest? Let’s not fall prey to the school’s propaganda.If you can spare 2 to 3 hours everyday for your kids, you can homeschool them.

I have been homeschooling my child since April 2020 year and have found the following advantages of homeschooling :

1) One of the biggest concerns is exams .How would a child take exams if he/she would not continue in the school system of education? The answer is NIOS. There are three National Boards of School Education viz., NIOS, CBSE and CISCE. The National Institute of Open Schooling(NIOS) is an autonomous institution under the Ministry of Education, Government of India. It is vested with the authority to conduct examinations and award certificates. The certificates awarded by NIOS are recognised for higher education, Government jobs and for all other purposes. NIOS offers OBE programme at three levels i.e. Level A (equivalent to class 3), Level B (equivalent to class 5) and Level C (equivalent to class 8).  If one at point of time wishes to return to school system one can take admission in formal school after completion of any level of OBE programme e.g. after completion of level A, he/she is eligible to take admission in class 4 in formal school. So you are not burning your bridges by opting for homeschooling.

OBE Children Programme Prospectus

2 )“What about socialization?” When it comes to homeschooling, there is an underlying assumption that you’ll stay home all the time and won’t have your children out in “the real world” enough. The reality is that homeschooling doesn’t deprive students from socialization ; it just comes in different shapes and sizes. Socialization is the act of being involved socially with others regardless of age  so when a homeschooler goes for any music class, painting/drawing class, sports class, he/she gets ample opportunities for socializing. He/She makes friends of varying ages. So contrary to the assumption, without the stress of negative peer pressure, homeschoolers tend to have a healthier self-esteem and are more at ease in social settings.

3)You need not be circumscribed by what books the school has asked you to buy .You can buy books from any of the good publication.They have colourful pages and lucid explanations. I very often see that many schools prescribe books of inferior publication which might be offering them huge commision. Now Cambridge/Oxford/Collins/Pearson/Orient Black Swan/Bharati Bhawan Publishers don’t need to pay bribes to schools in order to be included in a school’s curriculum as these are brands in the publication world but many others like Cordova, Maduban have to sneak their way in school curriculum.

4)You also have flexibility regarding tweaking of level according to the grasping ability of your child; for instance, my child is in Std. 1 and in regular schools, they only teach addition and subtraction using tens and ones in her grade . When my child perfected such sums, I introduced her to addition and subtraction of 3 digit numbers which is taught in Std. 2. It is often not possible within the rigid framework of a school as the school system often discourages students from solving questions from higher grades.

Watch this to understand how the school system’s one-size-fits all approach stifles learning-

5)Though schools talk about giving personal attention but it remains a lip service as the large  number of students in one classroom cannot allow teachers to give personal attention. There is one student at my institute who studies in a reputed school of Baroda in Std. 2  Now he cannot read a paragraph or write spellings of simple words like ear or nose. I was wondering why the teachers at the school never noticed it or why the parents were never kept in loop about it but at the same time I understood the helplessness of teachers.  In this poultry-farm style of teaching where 30 to 60 students are being ‘educated’ in one classroom, a teacher can’t hope to provide personal attention to students.

6) Your child gets a lot of time for his/her co-curricular activities like music, painting, craft, dancing, yoga, sports etc. as he/she will save a lot of time spent on commuting to school and being at school everyday .

7) In most of the schools Hindi/Sanskrit/Gujrati is introduced in Grade 2 while English is introduced in Nursery itself. Furthermore, students are discouraged from and in few schools students are even fined for using Hindi/Gujrati.This creates shame in the mind of students for their own roots which has far-reaching impact. Our children grow up to become apologetic about everything which is rooted in our culture, be it Indian classical music , Indian classical dance or any other Indian tradition. They become part of a herd  mentality and anything western appears ‘cool’ to them .Thus, children are very systematically being turned into second class westerners who are Indian in blood and colour but western in tastes, in opinion,and in intellect.

English must be taught as now it is the international language but we should know that it went on to become an international language not because of its exceptional merits. On the contrary there are numerous examples which prove that it’s an unscientific language, e.g., c in cat is pronounced k while c in rice is pronounced s ; K in knife, l in would and  b in doubt are silent letters. The linguists may offer some arcane explanation but to all intents and purposes it remains an illogical language.English emerged as an International language as England was an imperialist nation which in its heyday colonized one third of the globe. So in home-school, you can start teaching your kids Sanskrit/Gujrati/Hindi from a very early stage and kindle the self-esteem which comes from being connected to one’s roots.

8) You can redirect the money spent on school education to buying  many many glossy, hardbound books, interesting  iPad Apps for different subjects, musical instruments and sports equipment.

In case you are not satisfied with the school system  but do not have enough time to teach your child at home, we at Thinkitiv can lend a helping hand.Talk to us for more details. We believe that eating which provides food for our body and education which provides food for our mind should take place either at home or at a home away from home.