Astronomical costs cause Pune parents to home school their children

Many parents from the city are now opting for home schooling as against the traditional education system, mainly due to the astronomical costs of the latter.

One such parent, Rahul Ralebhat, said that his wife and he decided early on to home school their daughter, Madhura, 6. “We can see that the current education system has its limitations. It is industrious and believes in input and output. And so, we decided that we wanted to give Madhura a chance to learn and that if one day, she does want to go to school, she can. We also saw that learning is free but education is very expensive,” said Ralebhat. School fees are very high and parents can do so much more by themselves in courses that are tailormade for their children, he added.

“There are many hurdles in the education system today. Like the fees are very high and the child has to be picked up from and dropped to school among others. Home schooling can help children develop and grow mentally and physically where learning is fun,” said Ralebhat.

Initially, they studied learning methods and connected with other parents who were home schooling their children, according to Ralebhat. “We studied learning methods and connected with other like-minded parents. There are multiple learning tools online that one can use to teach one’s children,” Ralebhat said.

Another such parent, Chetan Erande, an IT professional, who has his son, 16, in home schooling, said that his son today has two Google certifications. “For the past seven years, we have been home schooling my son, Sneh. He is 16 years’ old today. And a US-based firm just absorbed him for a project. He dropped out of school when he was in Class 3. We wanted to put the time of eight to nine hours that the child spends in school to good use by getting him to learn. The school fees, too, are enormous. He went to school till Class 3 but we were not happy with it. He has found his passion in IT and wants to pursue further certifications in it,” Erande said.

There are many home schooling groups in metros that are connected through social media and help young parents use the available learning resources to home school their children, Erande said.