I was wondering if it’s legal homeschooling in Switzerland. I don’t have kids, but I thought it would be nice to be able to travel around the world while having kids. I think it would be fine if the only compulsory thing is to have exams at the end of each year/period.
Anyone has more info about it?
guts feeling says no, it’s not allowed. but better ask the responsible persons…
A colleague of mine is telling me that it is usually allowed in Switzerland but it’s regulated quite locally (by the canton and maybe even the commune).
It depends on the canton. There are some where it is strictly forbidden (I believe for example St. Gallen) and others are more casual about it (I think Appenzell is the main example). More information can be found here: Bildung zu Hause. The website is in German, but there is an option for English.
This is great. I’m potentially interested for two reasons: one is the ability to travel more with my son during the schooling period, second is I’d prefer to bring him up in love of liberty - instead of love of the state.
@Erma, the website is linking to this document:
Which in turn says that for Zug there is “Keine gesetzliche Regelungen zu Privatunterricht auffindbar.” What does it mean? There no regulation and thus you can homeschool, or you can’t?
You probably have to ask the Canton.
A more interesting question that I didn’t find answered (I skimmed, sorry) is what to do to be reintegrated in the system. Say you want him/her back when he/she is 15 to do an apprenticeship or something…what are the requirements?
Doesn’t homeschooling have a great opportunity cost factor if one of the partner needs to stay hone doing it? I mean public schools are basically almost free child care. Go for homeschooling will reduce your ROI on taxes. And I never heard about indoctrination …maybe you just had crappy teachers?
I started this topic because I was curious how some bloggers manage to travel with their children without ruining their life.
One of my good friends [he’s an elementary school teacher himself] just took his kids out of school for 6 months in order to travel the world. He got all the books and agenda what the kids have to learn during those 6 months with them and was teaching them on-the-go.
As mentioned above, you have to talk to your local school, show them you got a plan and let them buy-in. My friends’ kids where in Thailand, Sri-Lanka and Malaysia for 2 months each in 2017 and returned to their “old class”. They might do it again another year.
Did they have to take exams once they got back?
Being a teacher might have given him/her a free pass…
Maybe that’s a temporary option, but I would never consider it for a longer time. Public schools in Switzerland are quite good. Besides learning obvious skills in Math, German etc, I think the social component is huge. Children need to learn to interact with each other. If they fail to do so, it will be a big deficit for decades of their life.
I’d be very, very careful with this. I know some people who went to private school (not home-schooling), and even that already was problematic.
I agree with some of your points. Mostly with the social part of it. The rest is kind of debatable. I’m not even sure about the quality. (Funnily enough, I’ve read stats that show the difference between cantons. Ticino teach math better than german cantons, for example)
I know some teachers and the progression of the public school is IMHO alarming. I remember one teacher tell me that she can’t mark errors on exam with a red pen since the color red is too much aggressive. They also want to remove the level thing. Some kind of “no one is left behind” , which in theory is good, but the way is made is bullsh*t. You have the brightest students get bored because lessons should be made to help the weakest students. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for helping also the weak students, especially on the earlier schools but there are better ways, like for example the old “levels” method. If you are not good in math, you go to the Level B of math, which means you will study the necessary math skills to live (and study) confortably, but you won’t be able to go to high school (as long as you don’t do an entrance examination). This way, if you are not good in math, you wont slow down the future mathematicians/physicists etc. but you will still be able to learn enough math to study your favorite stuff.
Homeschooling is good as long as all the stuff taught in school is studied. The social part is the only one lacking unfortunately.
Btw I’m tinking about it for a temporary situation, not from year 1 to 20. That would be foolish imho.