Call to tighten home-schooling rules

HOME-SCHOOLING is one of issues that will be in the spotlight at the three-day Education Lekgotla this week.

The lekgotla, which started yesterday, will look into whether laws around home-schooling children should be tightened.

Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said he was worried about the increase in the number of pupils being home-schooled. He questioned whether this was because parents in former Model C schools did not want to integrate with black pupils, who were flocking into the schools.

“We accept that there are parents who want to teach their children at home. It’s their constitutional right, but we are part of a broader society and children need to know others’ cultures. The sudden increase of parents who believe home-schooling is the future is worrying. Is it another way to avoid integration with other cultures?”

Lesufi said the department was worried about the number of pupils removed from school to go into home-schooling centres that operate as unregistered independent schools.

Gauteng education head of department Edward Mosuwe said: “We have seen an upsurge of people who want to register independent schools.”

He said it was problematic when officials went to evaluate home-schooling centres, only to find them operating as independent schools.

“We now find out that parents are running independent schools,” he said.

“Sometimes they are not registered providers. People open up fly-by-night independent schools. We want to tighten rules around the registration of home-schooling.”