Education Minister Di Farmer has introduced legislation to the Queensland parliament that requires those schooled at home to follow the Australian curriculum in response to a surge.
There was an almost 200 per cent increase in homeschooling in 2023, with 10,048 students registered for home education in Queensland, up from 3411 in 2019.
There were 43,892 children registered for home education nationally in 2023 – double the 21,966 students in 2019.
“With the increase in the number of families choosing homeschooling, we need to make sure that the interests of the student are the priority – especially in regard to their wellbeing and safety – and this is what this legislation will do,” Farmer said.
The move has been welcomed by some, however others have concerns about the impact enforcing the curriculum could have.
Home Education Australia (HEA) said the mandate could lead to more parents taking their homeschooling “underground”, meaning their children would not be registered with the regulatory body.
HEA’s Samantha Bryan said most families registered with the Home Education Unit were succeeding with homeschooling, even if they were not following the national curriculum.
“If children are already receiving a high-quality education, if the system’s not broken, why are we trying to allegedly fix it,” she said.
Bryan said she would prefer an option for students to attend school part-time, and more support for home-educating families.
“Families are making great sacrifices because they desperately love and care about the wellbeing of their child,” she said.
“Some of these families would love to put their kids back in school, so I think a dual enrolment option – part-time home education, part-time school – would be great.”
Private homeschooling provider Euka already uses the Australian curriculum as the basis of its program.
Founder Ellen Brown said parents could still tailor their child’s education using the national curriculum.
“If you’re a homeschooling family that prefers to learn in certain ways or about certain things, then they may not spend as much time on some topics as others,” she said.
“There’s still a lot of flexibility in the way a child can learn and the way a family can structure it ... we don’t all have to do exactly the same thing.”
Brown and Bryan have both homeschooled their children.
They said homeschooling numbers were already growing before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brown said there were many reasons parents elected to homeschool their children.
“It could be school refusal, it could be a bullying situation or a mental health crisis,” she said.
The Queensland Government has also announced a $33 million boost for early childhood education aimed at building the sector’s workforce.
The funding includes $29 million in scholarship support for university students hoping to get into early childhood education.
AAP
