Tauranga homeschool parents going to extreme lengths to cover costs

Heili Swart homeschools her three children Conrad, 8 (left), Nina 6, and Ruben, 10. Photo / Andrew Warner

Some Tauranga parents are spending thousands out of their own pockets to educate their children from home. The homeschooling community in the region continues to flourish, yet some home educators are turning their sights on the Ministry of Education and saying the funding they are getting is only covering the bare minimum. Reporter Caroline Fleming spoke to some of these parents who are doing away with the normal structure of schooling about what it is costing them.

Ex-homeschooler Sue King used to get up at 3am every morning to deliver newspapers to cover the cost of homeschooling her children.

Now she joins a number of homeschool parents who say the funding provided by the Government is not enough.

The Ministry of Education provides annual supervision allowances for homeschooling of $743 for one child, $632 for the second, $521 for the third and $372 for all children after.

Deputy secretary of education system policy from the Ministry of Education, Dr Andrea Schöllmann, said the homeschoolers allowance was a contribution towards the cost of educating a child and families made the choice to homeschool with the full knowledge of the costs.

Katikati mum King homeschooled her children from Year 1 right through to 13 and said the funding was a "pittance" and almost "non-existent".

She said the funding hardly covered the cost of books her children required, especially as they grew older.

King used to deliver the newspaper around her neighbourhood in Katikati from 3am to 7am every morning, simply to help cover the costs of homeschooling.

"Every family had to have their own way of covering it."

Her family learned to live without "lavish things" and with all her children now in their 20s with masters degrees, she stands by her decision to homeschool as being the best thing for them.

Heili Swart, an Oropi mother who has homeschooled her three children for five years, said the funding homeschoolers received had not changed in a long time, regardless of everything else getting more expensive.

Over the years, Swart noticed that the older a child got, the more expensive curriculum materials were, yet the funding did not take this into account.

A Ministry of Education spokeswoman told the Bay of Plenty Times in a previous article that operational grant funding and staffing entitlements in mainstream schools were formula-driven, and many components were weighted by year level.

As a result, secondary schools would often receive more per-student funding than primary and intermediate schools.

Schöllmann said the homeschoolers allowance was not expected to cover all costs incurred at different ages.

Swart said it all came down to how a parent homeschooled and if they were willing to do the bare minimum, then the funding might just work.

However, she said a lot of homeschooling parents came into it with the expectation that they would be covering some of the cost themselves and that it was a "lifestyle choice".

"The allowance is just not well-reviewed or thought out."

The last review of home education was in 2014, but this did not lead to a change in the level of allowance.

In the review findings, homeschool parents submitted that the amount of funding was too low, that funding should not be reduced for each subsequent child and that extra funding was required for children with special education needs.

The Ministry of Education response was that it would explore options for increased funding in the 2016/17 budget round.

However, this did not amount to a change in supervision allowance.

Another homeschooling parent, Jay Hart, who has two young children, said the funding did not cut it and that she was spending $15,000 a year out of her own pocket on educating her two children.

"The disparity the Government spends between the schooled child and the homeschooled child seems unreasonable given the huge savings we are providing the Government by choosing to absorb the cost for homeschooling."

The Government spends between $6000 and $8000 on the average mainstream school child per annum and around $700 per annum on the average homeschooled child.

She said it also concerned her that the funding was not adequately covering the number of special needs children in homeschooling.

The home education allowance was not higher for a child with additional learning support needs, but a parent could receive advice and guidance from the Ministry on educating them, said Schöllmann.