It
is very difficult to tell the number of home educated children in
any state of Australia. Even the number of registered home educated
students is difficult to obtain from some states and some states
do not have a requirement to register. It is well known in the home
educating community that many of us do not bother or conscientiously
object to registration with a government authority.
The
following figures are based on Phil
Strange's website
He
formulated his estimates on the basis of NZ and Tasmanian figures
which were thought to have high rates of registration in the home
educating community, for various reasons. Phil is conservative in
his estimation, so these figures are understood to be minimums.
STATE
/ TERRITORY ..... 2001 census population ... Estimated number
of home educated students
Australian
Capital Territory ...... 321,700 ........... 461
New
South Wales .................. 6,609,300 ........ 9,464
Northern
Territory ...................... 200,000 ........... 286
Queensland
.............................3,635,100 ....... 5,205
South
Australia ........................1,514,900 ....... 2,169
Tasmania
....................................472,900 ........... 677
Victoria
..................................... 4,822,700 ........ 6,906
Western
Australia .................. 1,906,100 ........ 2,730
TOTAL
.................................... 19,485,300 ..... 27,898
By
June 2003 these figures would project to a Total of 28,457
Now
we have news from Eleanor Sparks who after the distribution of a
survery to home educators in Queensland early in 2003 writes:
"We
were able to distribute nearly 5,000 surveys
to homeschooling families by mail and, although this included people
who
received more than one copy, because they were on more than one
mailing
list, I feel that this would still represent at least 4,000 families
that we know about. Making the same assumptions as before, that
would
mean there are 8,000 families in total.
Also,
from the survey results, we found that about 85% of homeschooling
families in Queensland are not registered. Since we know that there
are
1,000 families who are registered, this means that there are about
6,700
families in total. This is probably the most accurate figure.
Given
that there are 6,000-8,000 families homeschooling in Queensland,
we can estimate the number of homeschooled children (aged 6-15*).
From
our survey each family had, on average, 2 to 2.5 children of school
age
being homeschooled. This gives us a total range of 12,000 to 20,000
children of school age being homeschooled in Queensland."
With
these statistics on Qld home educated children we would have to
say that the numbers of home educated children in Australia may
well be triple those we thought previously. A better estimate of
Australian home educated children would be 85,500. I believe this
is 2.2% of the numbers of school aged children in Australia.
* The
ages 6-15 are the compulsory school ages. It is certainly the case
that children under 6 and over 15 are being educated at home. |
