7 Reasons That Prove Public Schools Have An Edge Over Homeschooling

Considering to home school your child? Or are you still weighing your options: whether to send your child to a private school or make him/her learn at home. When it comes to your child's education, you sure want to take the best decision. Homeschooling, i.e, educating your child is catching up in India. While homeschooling does have its advantages, it also has certain drawbacks which shouldn't be ignored.

Reasons Why Public School Is Better Than Homeschooling

In this blog, I am stating the advantages of sending your child to a regular school.

• Curriculum – Regular schools both government and private have curriculum designed for the required age group. This curriculum does get revised periodically. It is difficult for homeschooling parents to create and edit curriculum. They also look to the national/state curriculum as a point of reference. In other countries there is a lot of support from the government to homeschoolers. In the US and UK homeschoolers have to take up periodic tests to check if they are on par with the regular school goers. India is yet to design such tests. Here homeschoolers do have the opportunity to appear as a private candidate in the Grade 10 and 12 exams or enrol as an NIOS candidate.
   
• Financially More Viable – Indeed sending children to schools is definitely more viable considering that a school houses laboratories, libraries, plenty of electives, extracurricular/ co-curricular activities apart from mere academics. It would be expensive for a homeschooler to avail any of such activities from home. Nowadays, schools offer fine art activities like dance, music, art and craft, martial art, indoor games like carom, chess and so many other activities after school hours at very affordable fees.
   
• Social Skill Development – Homeschooling may have advantages for some children. Yet they miss on the opportunity to build friendships with peers and other age group. Games classes, group activities, camping trips, field trips offer opportunities for children to develop social skills. Nowadays, even government schools have upgraded their facilities and offer activity-based learning.
   
• Leadership Development & Other Skills – From the kindergarten children get the opportunity of being part of the Student Council, become monitors or captains are elected or selected in every grade. Most schools have the ‘House system’ where children are grouped into various houses. In fact, even the alumni speak fondly of the Houses they belonged to while studying. These Houses would have leaders, assistant leasers at varied levels. Apart from the Class leadership and House leadership,schools may offer informal leadership like the Cleanliness leader, Homework leader, Notebook leader or Teacher's Assistant. Such positions motivate students and develop the leadership skill at an early age. Fund raising events, Inter House events, Inter school events, Sports leadership develop organisational, marketing, public speaking skills and sportsmanship qualities.Such events also develop students to be good followers too. Not all can become leaders yet one needs a good follower to inspire the leader. Hence, a child learns to be a team player which is an essential skill in today’s corporate world.
   
• Value Building – Children are exposed to different value sets in a school environment. A school setting is time bound and rigid as abiding by rules makes for a good citizen. While studying, students tend to dislike the school uniform yet once they become alumni, they feel proud and have a sense of belongingness on spotting their school uniforms. Uniforms inculcate a sense of equality and pride. Learning under various teachers/ subject experts is an experience a homeschooler would never have. Each teacher comes with her/ his expertise and values. There have been instances of one having a very strict teacher or a very tough teacher. The students, later on, claim that it had actually prepared them to work under tougher bosses in the corporate world.

[Also Read - What Are The Pros & Cons Of Homeschooling?]

• Time – It is tough for working parents to homeschool. It is also tougher to homeschool children of different age-groups. Imagine having to teach a nursery child while having a toddler or infant at home. A regular school has a time schedule where the child is occupied. 
   
• Experience – Ultimately when we adults look back at our school days, we have several fond memories of friendship, teachers, classroom jokes, sharing lunches, stolen moments of laughter, getting punished for not doing homework. And with today’s social media several schools have regular alumni meeting, reunions, and informal get-togethers. School friendships normally last a lifetime.

And isn’t life a string of memories!