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THE HOMESCHOOLING IN RURAL CONTEXT--CHALLENGES


As we know that the homeschooling is considered to be the education in the homely environment without any formalities. It is also autonomy and freedom for the homeschoolers in terms of adopting any model of curriculum. If we look at the structure of homeschooling it is clearly seen influences of core educational approach in the homeschooling. The homeschooling cannot be the same for every socio-economic, and cultural situation. The homeschooling comes with a set of challenges and limitations in urban areas, and also its own set of challenges in rural areas as well. Now in this article, we will try to understand the challenges of homeschooling in a rural context.

Image source: The Hindu newspaper


There are few common challenges which families face irrespective of region. The children are advised to read the books the whole day. The case will be worst where the focus is on rote learning. Parents will be merely an observer instead of facilitator with different varieties of activities. Parent’s observation focuses only on reading and writing, if the children don't do this, children will be punished strictly. If we see the nature of the treatment of the parents, we can definitely assume that parents are facing enormous issues and challenges in terms of homeschooling their children. Particularly because the parents are not aware of theories of child development and learning. In most of rural families, the parents might not have the opportunity to meet many families who are homeschooling. Thus these parents have a lack of exposure and experience. In rural areas, there might be no access to the internet or low bandwidth of internet to access large files online. Or in some cases, parents might not be using smartphones at all. Or even though they are using a smartphone, they might not be aware of technical usage. These are a few common challenges in terms of homeschooling in the rural context (Few urban families also face similar challenges). 

If we talk about homeschooling in rural context-the crisis of competencies and socio-economic conditions are very common. We cannot say that these challenges are faced only by rural population, but these problems could arise in urban context also in certain situations.

1.     Crisis of competencies and opportunities: We cannot force the family to get a technology gadget just for homeschooling. In situations where there is acute poverty in a family, we cannot force a parent to get the required technology. Moreover, few rural settings are rich than their urban counterparts, and few rural areas with low agricultural output are very low economically. Sometimes parents in a rural setting might not have qualifications/basic education to support their child in homeschooling. 

2.     Crisis of socio-economic conditions: Socio-economic conditions play a vital role in the proper implementation and execution of homeschooling. The children have to be provided with the necessary environment for learning at home. The homeschooling also demands access to lots of multimedia resources. But, the rural population most of the times are deprived of such facilities because of not being able to afford such essential technology products. 

Compared to urban area, in the rural context many are from agricultural background, where the profession does not require them to poses a smartphone or laptop (But this is not the case for all the rural areas. Rural areas which are close to major cities, one can see these broad variations among rural settings too).

Note: This is not a comparison between Urban and Rural areas. When we say rural areas it does not merely mean a village. We have referred rural area for the regions which are economically not competent. We do not want to compare rural and urban. We will cover a separate article on the challenges of urban setting in the coming chain of articles. 

The article is published as part of a series of articles on homeschooling. By visiting our homeschooling page, you can read all the connected articles.


Reflection is contributed by:
Satyasing Mushahary in consultation with Maaz Mohammed AQ
Both are alumni of Azim Premji University (2014-16)



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