Statistics on Home Education in Australia

by Colleen Strange , 16/4/2004

How many children are home educated in Australia? It is very difficult to tell the number of home educated children in any state of Australia. Even the number of registered home educated students is difficult to obtain from some states and some states do not have a requirement to register. It is well known in the home educating community that many of us do not bother or conscientiously object to registration with a government authority.

The following figures are based on Phil Strange's website
http://www.atu.com.au/~pstrange/home_Ed/ He formulated his estimates on the basis of NZ and Tasmanian figures which were thought to have high rates of registration in the home educating community, for various reasons. Phil is conservative in his estimation, so these figures are understood to be minimums.

STATE / TERRITORY ..... 2001 census population ... Estimated number of home educated students

Australian Capital Territory ...... 321,700 ........... 461

New South Wales .................. 6,609,300 ........ 9,464

Northern Territory ...................... 200,000 ........... 286

Queensland .............................3,635,100 ....... 5,205

South Australia ........................1,514,900 ....... 2,169

Tasmania ....................................472,900 ........... 677

Victoria ..................................... 4,822,700 ........ 6,906

Western Australia .................. 1,906,100 ........ 2,730

TOTAL .................................... 19,485,300 ..... 27,898



By June 2003 these figures would project to a Total of 28,457

Now we have news from Eleanor Sparks who after the distribution of a survery to home educators in Queensland early in 2003 writes:

"We were able to distribute nearly 5,000 surveys
to homeschooling families by mail and, although this included people who
received more than one copy, because they were on more than one mailing
list, I feel that this would still represent at least 4,000 families
that we know about. Making the same assumptions as before, that would
mean there are 8,000 families in total.

Also, from the survey results, we found that about 85% of homeschooling
families in Queensland are not registered. Since we know that there are
1,000 families who are registered, this means that there are about 6,700
families in total. This is probably the most accurate figure.

Given that there are 6,000-8,000 families homeschooling in Queensland,
we can estimate the number of homeschooled children (aged 6-15*). From
our survey each family had, on average, 2 to 2.5 children of school age
being homeschooled. This gives us a total range of 12,000 to 20,000
children of school age being homeschooled in Queensland."

With these statistics on Qld home educated children we would have to say that the numbers of home educated children in Australia may well be triple those we thought previously. A better estimate of Australian home educated children would be 85,500. I believe this is 2.2% of the numbers of school aged children in Australia.

* The ages 6-15 are the compulsory school ages. It is certainly the case that children under 6 and over 15 are being educated at home.