How Many Home Educators in Australia

Author: Philip Strange

Estimates as to numbers of home educated students have been made from time to time. It would not seem possible to make a quantitative assessment within Australia, a major reason being that the number of unregistered home educators is thought to be significant. However in New Zealand we do have some statistics that, with qualification, could be applied in the Australian context.

In New Zealand there is an incentive to be registered as the government provides a tax free payment for each child. In Australia there are no such incentives.

It is also clear that significant numbers of parents will choose to disobey the law if they consider it a restriction on their responsibility to educate their own children.

In the application of these figures from New Zealand a few issues probably should be considered.

1. The provision of a cash incentive to register may attract some people to home educate who would otherwise not consider it an option.
2. Home educators tend to be passionate about their responsibilities to their children and as such are unlikely to be attracted by a cash incentive or conversely be dissuaded by "restrictive" legislation.
3. Home educators are likely to conscientiously object to and generally not comply with "restrictive" legislation.

New Zealand estimated population in 1998 was 3,683,000

In New Zealand there is a financial advantage to register as home educating. It is probably a reasonable assumption that there are few unregistered home educated students. In July 1998 there were 5274 registered home educated students in 3001 families. The NZ statistics included home educated students aged 16,17,18,19, these accounted for 9.2% of the total. ( figures published by the 'Data Management Unit, NZ Ministry of Education, Education Statistics News Sheet, Vol 8 No8 Sept 1998)

If we applied these proportions to Australia.

Australian estimated population in 1998 was 18,500,000

Applying the same proportion as New Zealand, Australia would have 26,500 home educated students in 15,000 families nationally.

ON A STATE BY STATE BASIS

Tasmania has had a reasonably stable home education administration since 1994. This administration lacks most of the excessive controls of some other Australian states. If the figures in the above table are corrected for the older age students then an estimate of approximately 650 home educated students is derived, the actual figure (1999) is 534 (HERLIN Bulletin No2, July 1999). I would think it reasonable that there are a number of unregistered home educators as well. This State's data supports the premise that the NZ data is applicable.

In New South Wales the figure of 9000 when reduced by 9.2% for students over 15 becomes 8200 making an interesting comparison with the Office of the Board of Studies figure of about 1400 for the same age group (in 1998). It would seem that an estimate of several thousand unregistered home educated students in NSW is not unreasonable.

"Given that Queensland has about 20% of the Australian population (4 million of 20 million), this translates to 10,000-25,000 families homeschooling 16,700-41,750 school-age students nationwide."