Homeschooling in Switzerland – More and more children are being taught at home – Radio SRF 1


Contents

The number of children in homeschooling in Switzerland has doubled since 2018. What are the reasons?

Author:

In the 2022/23 school year in Switzerland, 4,136 students were educated at home by their own parents or legal guardians. This is shown by the statistics from the Conference of Cantonal Education Directors (EDK).

The canton of Bern recorded the highest number of homeschoolers with 1,263 children and young people, followed by the canton of Vaud with 873 and the canton of Zurich with 613 privately taught students.

Compared to the 987,000 learners who, according to the Federal Statistical Office (BFS), attend a regular school, the number of “homeschoolers” is small. But their number is continually growing. It should also be noted that the statistics also include children who are only given private lessons on a temporary basis during the holidays or for psychological or physical reasons.

Homeschooling leader Canton Bern

In the canton of Bern, by far the most children are educated at home. The legal situation in the canton is comparatively liberal. Parents or legal guardians may teach up to five children privately. You do not need to apply for permission to run a private school.

In addition to the instructing teacher, we now require detailed planning of lessons.

The canton has responded to the increase in children and young people being educated at home. The head of the Office for Kindergarten, Elementary School and Counseling Bern (AKVB) told SRF: “We now require detailed planning of lessons in addition to the instructing teacher.”

Homeschooling – the legal situation


Open the box
Close the box

Legend:

The Swiss education system is organized cantonally when it comes to homeschooling.

Keystone / DPA / Jens Kalaene

There are no Swiss-wide regulations regarding homeschooling. The cantons can determine individually whether and how homeschooling is permitted.

Restrictive or forbidden

Homeschooling is prohibited in Ticino. In other cantons, for example St. Gallen, Zug or Basel-Stadt, it is practically not approved. Stephan Schleiss, Zug Director of Education, told Zentralplus.ch: “Isolation through individual lessons must be avoided. The education of community skills is given high priority.”

Liberal with guidelines

In the cantons of Bern and Zurich, parents are allowed to teach without a teaching license. In other cantons, homeschooling is only approved for parents with a teaching certificate. The process for issuing a permit also differs from canton to canton.

The aim is to ensure that Curriculum 21 is implemented correctly. The school inspectorate visits the families and checks whether all requirements are being met. For children who need special educational measures, additional training courses must be attended.

Why do parents choose homeschooling?

“We don’t collect the reasons,” says Erwin Sommer, “since they are not a prerequisite for approval.” You hear a variety of reasons from the cantonal inspectors. Some parents are not satisfied with the quality of the public school, others do not agree with the timetables.

For many parents, elementary school is too narrow and too static.

What is striking is that in the first year of the corona pandemic there was a larger jump from 2,290 to 3,015 children taught at home. So has Corona fueled homeschooling?

“No,” says Patrick Ziegler, president of the “Education at Home” association. There are 1,300 families in the association who do homeschooling. “We had to provide a lot of information about what homeschooling means and how big the responsibility is. Very few actually took the step simply because they were not satisfied with certain measures,” says Ziegler.

Corona is not the reason. They also stand by the goals of the curriculum, but for many parents the elementary school is too narrow and too static. “We want more dynamism in education and we want to be actively involved,” says Ziegler.

source site-72