Homeschooling in India, Advantages and Disadvantage of Homeschooling
Does your child hate going to school? Are worried about the safety of your kids in school? Then why do not you try homeschooling for your kids as it gaining popularity day by day in India also like USA. Please read the article given below to get more information about Homeschooling in India and its advantages and disadvantages.
Homeschooling is going popular day by day in India and if you do not want to send your kids to regular schools because of safety reasons ,time problem, child health or any other reason than you can home-school your child. Your child could appear for examinations conducted by the National Institute for Open Schooling (NIOS) or by the IGCSE board. There is no separate syllabus for homeschooling children you can followed prescribed textbooks or design your own curriculum by referring to syllabi of different boards. Is homeschooling legal in India?
This is the first question which comes in mind when we decide to opt the homeschooling system for our kids. Yes, Homeschooling is legal in India as The Minister of Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal officially recognized and affirmed homeschooling as a legal educational option in all of India in September 2010, under "The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009". The Act stipulates eight years of formal education for all children between 6 and 14 years of age.
Advantages of Homeschooling in India:
• In today scenario where most of the parents are working and live in nuclear family it become difficult to give more time for kid's education, the biggest problem in front of the working parents is Where to leave the kids after school? As most of the schools finish after 2:00 pm whereas parents reach home 7 or 8 in the evening so it looks difficult to fill the gap of this 4 to 6 hours in that case homeschooling will be better alternate. You can also take the help of tutors when you can no longer deal with a subject. So the biggest advantage of Homeschooling is that the timetable is flexible, you can adjust the time table of your kids according to your schedule so that they can spend time pursuing their area of interest, with friends and other activities.
• As we heard lots of news about the incidents recently occurring in schools so the safety issue is become the prime concern of most of the parent's opting the homeschooling you can get rid of the safety issues as the kid will get education at home in front of your eyes. Home schooling keeps children away from other students that may be corruptive forces.
• Homeschoolers are free of exam phobia. Instead comparing and competing oneself with others they compete with themselves. If you feel that your child is not comfortable with the present syllabus or books than you can change that according to your kids.
• Homeschoolers get education in the premises of the home so they get more safe and friendly atmosphere and the learning is not limited to classroom walls it is more real, more fruitful and becomes a part of life style.
Disadvantages of Homeschooling in India:
• The biggest disadvantage to home schooling is the child's lack of socialization as he gets his educations at home which restricts his social circle and interact with other children. In school kids celebrate all the festivals and occasion together, share their lunch boxes, exchange their thoughts and learn about the new things from senior student's behavior which help them to understand the social and moral values in detail but in homeschooling kids get education in their house which can make them isolated, passive or ill-equipped to handle situations where interaction is required.
• All parents are not the trained teachers so it becomes difficult for them to teach their kids in a way like the teachers do in school. They have to prepare lessons, plan activities, organize and keep the children on task like the teachers which require lot of time and skill. Parents need to maintain the balance between their own time and time for their kid's study which is really very difficult. So it becomes difficult to find time for yourself. Usually one of the parent has to sacrifice his/her career to give better education to their kids at home.
• It is not possible for the parents to teach all the subjects to their kids so they have to hire the tutors which can become little bit expensive.
• Homeschooling can be expensive as parents have to buy books, materials, computer software and other resources in order to teach the lessons. They have to plan the trips, social activities like the schools do for better guidance of the kids as they cannot learn everything from books. Apart from routine requirements like books, CDs, painting kits, one also needs to pay for extra classes which these days are very expensive.
• You have to set the separate room for your kids where they can study without any disturbance and in today scenario it is difficult to arrange the separate room for kids.
So now it's completely your decision whether you want to send your kids to regular school or want to educate them at home. It is important to give good education to all kids no matter which way you select.