Roger Jaensch, Tania Rattray.
Home education in Tasmania has seen a 25% increase in the number of registrations in the period between November 2021 and March of this year.
As at 31 March 2022, there were 1,467 registered home educated students from 853 families.
Minister for Education, Roger Jaensch, stated in last week’s Budget estimates hearings that the Office of the Education Registrar had seen an unprecedented increase, with 286 new applications over approximately four months.
Tania Rattray, independent MLC for McIntyre, asked the minister if the resources available to the OER were adequate given the increase in the workload.
Tim Bullard, Katharine O’Donnell.
The Secretary of the Department of Education (DoE), Tim Bullard, stated that normally enrolments are passed from schools to the OER, but under recent times many schools were not releasing the enrolment from the school because the parents may change their enrolment. Even though students were no longer attending school, they were still being contacted and supported by the school.
The OER Education Registrar, Katharine O’Donnell, confirmed that they had seen a huge increase in demand and that she had strategies to manage this, however, that they had been in discussions within the Department about the need for short term assistance.
MLC Rattray suggested that it was a “polite way of putting – trying to get more resources.”
Home Education Data over the last 20 years shows increase is a trend
Home education, whilst still only chosen by a relatively small sector of the population, has seen a steady increase in the past two decades. Home education data in Tasmania was inconsistently provided from 1991 to 2000, but since 2001, Department of Education Annual Reports have provided clear figures of the number of families and children registered, and the number of new registrations each year.
From 30 June 2021 to 31 March 2022 the number of registered home educated young people increased 28.3% from 1143 in 2021 to 1467 in 2022, with most of those 300+ registrations occurring between November and March according to Minister Jaensch.
Between 2001 & 2022, the number of registered home educated young people increased 228% from 447 to 1467 over 22 years.
Research of home education numbers in Tasmania showed that between 2001 & 2011 that home education had grown 35% from 447 to 605 registered home educated young people in that decade. Since 2011, the number of registered home educated young people grew 142% from 605 to 1467.
From 2001 to 2021, the average growth rate was 4.57% per annum over 21 years. The latest data increases this yearly average growth rate to 5.55% growth per year between 2001 and 2022. In recent years, growth in home education has been growing faster. In the 11 years between 2011 and 2021, the average rate of increase was 5.95% per annum. The 2022 data released yesterday put the ten yearly growth rates from 2011 to 2022 to 7.66% per year.
What caused the sudden spike in Home Education registrations this year?
Towards the end of 2021, the state government made many changes around COVID-19 restrictions & protocol, including the easing of Tasmanian border restrictions, the introduction of mandatory mask wearing, mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for certain sectors of the workforce, and the approval by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) of vaccinations for 5-11 year olds. Then Premier, Peter Gutwein, also stated that there may be a delay in the restart of the 2022 school year for DoE schools to allow children to be vaccinated.
Gutwein later reversed his position and held firm on the reopening of schools as planned for 2022.
Uncertainties in Tasmania about what the impact of officially ‘reopening the borders’ and ‘living with COVID’ would be were possible motivators for the unusual increase in new home education registrations since November 2021.
Further investigation and surveys would gain a better understanding of this phenomenon and if the home educators came from public or private schools, or were simply starting their formal education.
Are you a freshly minted home educator? Tell us your reasons for choosing to home educate by sending a letter to the Editor to [email protected].
