An Alternative
to Public Schooling
Homeschooling in China
With the end of the Chinese Lantern Festival, the opening day of China's elementary and middle schools is approaching. For most students in mainland China, school days means homework, practice, exams and strict score rankings. But for some children, they never have the concept of enrollment. A new school term for them means learning some new knowledge with their parents at home.
SHANGQIU, - Zhang Shikang, an eight-year-old boy, was supposed to be in a class of second grade of elementary school, but now he is learning the knowledge of the eighth grade with other three kids at home. His teacher is his mother, and the “headmaster" is his father.
The homeschooled sibling
This year is Shikang’s fourth year of homeschooling. Like his older sister Zhang Yi wen, Shikang is a homeschooler. Yi Wen had already taken the college entrance examination at the age of 10 and was admitted to a college in Shangqiu. Now the 12-year-old girl Yi Wen is already a college student. With the encouragement of parents, Shikang also plans to take the college entrance examination after three years.
Shikang’s parents, Zhang Mintao, and Li Hanying, they both experienced college entrance examinations. The couple has a deep understanding of China’s exam-oriented education system, and they made a decision for their kids that was entirely different from most of the people. When Yiwen was four years old, she had been in a public kindergarten for a month, but soon, her parents discovered that their daughter could not adapt to kindergarten life. “I thought it was boring at the kindergarten, and my parents thought it was a waste of time, so I came back,” Yiwen said.
The front door of a
kindergarten in Shangqiu
To keep their children away from the stress of public schools and to enable them to receive higher education earlier, the parents chose to teach their children at home instead of letting them go to conventional schools.
"I have a full understanding of the Chinese education system. I don't want my children to accept the relatively low-quality education." The father, Zhang Mintao said. Without much hesitation, the four-year-old Yiwen quickly ended her schooling life and officially became a homeschooler under the education of her parents.
“Homeschooling” refers to home based-education led by parents and it has been developing around the world in many nations. Homeschooling has been highly systematized in the developed countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and Canada, and it also serves as an important complement to the compulsory education systems in those countries.
As a new form of education, homeschooling is also gradually becoming a choice adopted by a small group of young Chinese parents during the education of their children. Compared to the U.S., where more than 2 million students were home-schooled in 2010, in the world's second-largest economy, homeschooling is still at an early stage.
Unhappy with the education system and the educational quality of traditional schools, there is a growing number of parents in China are keeping their kids at home. A nationwide survey by the 21st Century Education Research Institute showed that the number of parents who show their interest in homeschooling or un-schooling grew at an annual rate of 30 percent between 2013 and 2017. It showed that by February 2017, almost 50,000 people in China “pay close attention to” or “are trying to provide” home-based study for their kids. 6, 000 of them have already started to give lessons at home. However, if compared with the 1.4 billion populations in China, this number is still tiny. Not everyone has the determination; the ones who take the courage to embark on it are still a minority. Zhang Mintao's family is one of those 6,000.
According to a previous report, most Chinese homeschooling families remain concentrated in Guangdong province, Zhejiang province and Beijing, where the local economy is more developed and families are typically more open-minded about education. When it comes to Shangqiu, the hometown of Shikang and Yiwen, is a small city in Henan Province. Homeschooling or un-schooling is an unfamiliar concept for locals.
It is a three-story house with a small yard, which located in the central area of Shangqiu，it is not only the home of Shikang and Yiwen but also their school. There are no exquisite decorations, no stylish electronic entertainment facilities, but compared to most families in some big cities in China, there is relatively sufficient space for Shikang and his “classmates” to learning and playing.
Every morning Shikang starts his day with reading. Before class, he has an hour to read any books he liked. At half-past eight, Shi Kang and his three companions began their whole day of study. Ancient Chinese, English, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and so forth. The course schedule is hectic. In addition to Shikang's mother and another tutor, the Internet is also an indispensable "teacher" for those homeschooling children.
The city of Shangqiu
The city of Shangqiu
the home of Shikang and Yiwen
the home of Shikang and Yiwen
These textbooks that Shikang learned were chosen by his parents, not by the Chinese Ministry of Education. The 8-year-old boy is currently studying the mathematics and physics of the eighth grade, while his textbooks of Chinese and English are the bilingual version of Analects. "The study of Chinese and English involves humanities education, those textbooks for national compulsory education are lack of humanities education.” The father, Zhang Mintao said, “We also did not choose historical textbooks from mainland China because we feel that these contents are distorted by ideology. We would like to choose some more objective books."
Regarding the choice of mathematical textbooks, Shi Kang’s father said that they chose the textbooks from public schools. He believes that Chinese science textbooks are more difficult than Western ones. “And children still have to take the GAO KAO after all.” The father said.
Gaokao is one of the core topics of Chinese education. The exam-oriented system has always been the central aspect of Chinese education being criticized.
A previous report by Sixth Tones has shown that although China has been trying to reform the Gaokao system for decades, the stress of the examination has never been reduced. Most Chinese parents complained about the system while they were busy sending their children to various extracurricular tutoring classes. Even many of them spent millions on “school-district houses.” Meanwhile, a small number of Chinese parents chose an alternative way for their children's education.
“Because of the exam-oriented system, public schools will ask children to do a lot of useless exercises over and over again” Shikang’s father said.
“The school only evaluates the students by thier scores. As a result, the top ten students in a class will be favored by teacher, and the last ten students will be abandoned by the system because of this single evaluation standard. They are discriminated against by teachers and classmates. When they go back home, some of them will also be criticized by their parents, which will cause great psychological harm to these children.” At the same time, Shikang’s father also expressed that as parents, they are powerless to change this situation.
“So we can only choose to educate our children at home.” The mother, Li hanying said.
"I am not a supporter of homeschooling . I choose to educate my children at home because the education methods in Chinese public schools are even worse."
A survey from the 21st Century Education Research Institute in 2017 reveals the primary motivations for homeschooling in Mainland China.
While parents rarely choose to homeschool in China, it must be acknowledged that more and more young Chinese parents are beginning to pay attention to homeschooling and consider starting to teach children at home. “The core criterion for assessing the suitability of homeschooling is the child, that is , whether the child is suitable for home-educated,” says Wang Jiajia, Associate Professor of the School of Teacher Education, Jiangsu University; the research fellow of the HOMESCHOOLING project of the 21st-Century Education Research Institute.
Courtesy of Professor Wang Jiajia
Courtesy of Professor Wang Jiajia
“Homeschooling offers a possible option for children who are not suitable for schooling, but it also has huge potential risks and lot of uncertainties.” Professor Wang told us that the educational ability of the parents, the pressure of public opinion by relatives, parental determination and the financial condition of the family are essential factors in determining whether a family is suitable for homeschooling.
Many people think that homeschooling means children stay at home instead of going to school or receiving education outside the school. Those are not homeschooling. Wang Jiajia explains that homeschooling does not mean “no learning,” it means school-age children do not go to traditional schools but receive parent-led education at home.
In addition to being unclear about the concept, the common misunderstanding of “homeschooling” in Chinese society is the expectation of its possibility of success. Some people think that homeschooling is very likely to succeed; more people believe that it must fail. Professor Wang told us that the forms of home education vary widely. As an attempt or experiment in educational reform, the probability of failure in homeschooling must be relatively high. But the question is, what is the standard for success or failure?
“In my opinion, the core standard lies in the growth of children. As long as these children are better educated and experienced than they are in school, they can be considered successful. ”Wang says.
Although Yi Wen was admitted to a college at the age of ten, there are still many people who cannot agree with the practice of this homeschooling family.
“Most people don’t understand us, “the homeschooling parents said, “We think the main reason is that Homeschooling is still illegal in China.”
According to the Chinese Education Law, children are required to enroll in the school system from age seven and attend for nine years. A previous report by SCMP shows that the Chinese Education Ministry has released a statement warning parents that “it’s forbidden to conduct home-schooling education to replace the compulsory education uniformly enforced across the country.”
The scale of thousands of homeschoolers is still a tiny group of people in China, it is quite difficult to make great progress in legislation in a short term. Professor Wang Jiajia expressed that we are able to better meet the individualized educational demands of more children by adopting the reform of the school education system and strengthening the development of home education . legislative work can be done more.
“Illegal does not mean immoral; any innovation that contributes to educational reforms should be encouraged.” Zhang Mintao said. At this moment, he is planning to operate a small private school (also known as Sishu) in Shenzhen to spread his educational philosophy and methods.
Shikang’s father hopes that in the future, homeschooling or other alternative forms of education can exist legally.
“ We want to provide
a better education
for our children;
we have the right
to educate our children .”
The father said.
