Should Home Schooling Be Encouraged as an Alternative to Educate Children?

Should Home Schooling Be Encouraged As An Alternative To Educate Children? “14-year old makes Malaysian homeschoolers proud.” Balakrishna M Pillai, a precocious Malaysian homeschooler has, in fact, won the international Global Challenge Award in the Best Global Business category (David Tan, 2009). Whoever read about this will probably then come out with a question: “What is home schooling?” According to The Columbia Encyclopedia (2008), home schooling is defined as ‘the practice of teaching children in the home as an alternative to attending public or private elementary or high school’. Globally, home schooling is no longer something fresh nowadays as it has already been introduced a century back. Before public schools were introduced as a compulsory education for children, home schooling has always been the way of parents educating their children. In mid 1960s, the idea of back to home schooling comes out from John Holt, Raymond Moore and Ayn Rand. Each of them had different reasons and views against the current educational system. But they shared the same objectivity which has then brought them up together. Thus, they fought for their common goal which was to let children to have the opportunity to study in a better and safer environment, and hence, motivate children to study. (Parenting 4 Dummies, 2007). For many years, there are many who tend to argue that home schooling brings many disadvantages. These disadvantages includes the impression that homeschooled kids are unable to get socialize, cost of home schooling will be a burden for parents and some of them even claim that home schooling is an act of overprotective parents that refuse to let their children from having chances to get in touch with the society.
The arguments surrounding home schooling have been raised again and again ever since home schooling was introduced as an alternative to educate children. Many years passed by and here are we in the 21st century. Home schooling has now become something