Homeschooling parents often have mixed feelings when faced with a request to participate in a research being done on homeschooling. One the one hand they feel that research can be beneficial for home education. The fact that research is being done is an acknowledgement that home education is viewed as important. The results of research can be used to protect the right to homeschool. For example when the results of research are used in court to provide objective proof that the education received by homelearners is not inferior to the education provided at public schools.
On the other hand there are people that are concerned that proponents of increased regulation can use research to bolster their argument that home education must be more regulated. There are however no examples of research that was used to justify increased regulation. There is therefore little reason for parents to be distrustful of research on home education.
A significant amount of research has been done on home education in South Africa. Click here for a list of links to this research. In line with research in other countries, South African research has also confirmed that “home learners attain better results than learners in government schools in the achievement test and that they are therefore not academically disadvantaged; the level of socialisation of home learners compares favourably with the standardised norm."
The Association for Homeschooling has received a request to support a research project. This research is performed by Michelle Sansom-Sherwill for her BA(Ed) Honours in Education and the purpose of the research is to find out from parents what the different options are to gain a matric without going through the normal school channels. The results of this research should be of great value, because there is a great need under homeschooling parents to find ways of gaining a matric outside the normal school channels. The survey that parents are requested to complete is totally anonymous and will not intrude on their privacy. It will take a maximum of 10 minutes to complete the survey.
Parents are encouraged to participate in the survey for this research, because the results will be beneficial for the homeschooling community. Parents that would like to participate must please note that this survey is mainly relevant for parents with older children.