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.
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| 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)