Cynthia Hancox: Concerns raised over quality of education in public schools

Bullying, unmet special needs education, and system pressure appear to be some of the likely causes of a rise in homeschooling rates.   

The Ministry of Education’s data shows 11,400 children had an exemption from school, favouring home education last year - twice that of 2001. 

National Council of Home Educators government liaison Cynthia Hancox told Heather du Plessis-Allan resources are stretched, teachers are stressed, there are more children with additional needs, and the system isn't keeping up. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now homeschooling is more popular than ever. Data show that
eleven four hundred students are enrolled in home education or
we're at least at the end of last year. Now
that is double what it was twenty five years ago.
Cynthia Hancocks is the government liaison for the National Council
of Home Educators and is with us morning Cynthia, Good
morning Heather. Why is it so popular?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh, we look, there's lots of reasons and it always
has been. The Ministry doesn't gather data on why people
choose to home educate, but the National Council of Home
Educators does ask that question in our annual survey, and
the majority of respondents talk about things like desiring a
closer family units, family values more central, wanting a higher quality,

(00:41):
tailored arning education for their children. And there's a variety
of other reasons. It might be special education needs that
aren't being met in school, or wanting to avoid bullying
or negative aspects of the school system. It can be
because their children are involved in activities and the lifestyle
of homeschool and gives them more flexibility for the sports

(01:03):
or the travel or the whatever it is that might
be involved.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
So one of the reasons. No, I mean, there's a
whole bunch of reasons available obviously, But is any one
of these actually driving, in particular driving the increase that
we've seen in recent times.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, again, it's speculative, really, but there's been a lot
of changes in the education system over the last you know,
six to eight years, and a lot of families are
just not that happy with what is going on.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
And when you say that, Untha, are you talking about
the actual learning that the kids are doing, Like a
parent's looking at it and saying, oh, little Johnny is
not learning enough in maths, I'm gonna have to pull
them out. Or is it what little Johnny is learning?
And by that I mean maybe some controversial stuff that
people don't love.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
I'd say it's a combination of those things. In particular,
there's a lot of concern about the quality of education.
Content is a factive for some people, but it is
quality or the outcomes edge children are experiencing. Now, I'm
not knocking the education system as such. There's some fabulous teachers,
there's some fabulous schools. However, the overall thing is that

(02:10):
we've got stretched resources, we've got stress teachers, we've got
an increase in children with additional needs and the systems
not keeping up with that. So there's a lot of
things that end up having a flow on effect to
the quality of education that some children are experiencing.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Say, very quickly, what do you make of the fact
that if kids are homeschooled they are not allowed to
get medals if they do well at those competitions.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, it's very inequitable, isn't it very unfair? If you
look at the Rights of the child the UN Convention
on the Rights of the Child, all children have the
right to participate in cultural, recreational, et cetera activities, and
in fact the state has an obligation under that convention
to ensure that all children have access to that and

(02:54):
it's not dependent on where they're getting educated. So really
it is completely inequitable. Students can't get medals they burned.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yep, it's ridiculous, Cynthia, Thanks very much, Cynthia Hancock's government
liaison for the National Council of Home Educators New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
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