In December last year, I posted THIS article about the big spike in homeschooling exemption application numbers, which continued through until March this year (I added Feb updates to that article). This post is to provide some further data about numbers of applications since, from what is currently available.
The next official statistics (to end of June 2022) won't be released on Education Counts until later this year - likely December - so any data in the meantime comes from OIA request results that have been shared, often by journalists who have been following this situation with interest.
The next official statistics (to end of June 2022) won't be released on Education Counts until later this year - likely December - so any data in the meantime comes from OIA request results that have been shared, often by journalists who have been following this situation with interest.
May 2022: The chart below was provided by a BOP reporter, who received it from the MoE as part of an information release.
In the complete document, they said that in 2021, they had received 3,833 applications, of which 3,440 had been approved (that year - some were not yet processed), and in 2022 from 1/2-30/4 they had received 2,328 applications, of which 1,500 had been approved so far when the data was extracted on 5th May 2022.
In the complete document, they said that in 2021, they had received 3,833 applications, of which 3,440 had been approved (that year - some were not yet processed), and in 2022 from 1/2-30/4 they had received 2,328 applications, of which 1,500 had been approved so far when the data was extracted on 5th May 2022.
June 2022: An article was published under the headline "Homeschool requests dip now COVID, mask rules have relaxed."
It essentially quotes the same data above, finishing with: "Nationally there were 781 applications in January, 744 in February, 548 in March and 255 in April."
While this is a dip from those big numbers in Oct-Feb, that still places applications at about "twice normal" compared to previous years, a trend that doesn't look likely to end any time soon.
It essentially quotes the same data above, finishing with: "Nationally there were 781 applications in January, 744 in February, 548 in March and 255 in April."
While this is a dip from those big numbers in Oct-Feb, that still places applications at about "twice normal" compared to previous years, a trend that doesn't look likely to end any time soon.
Since the above, there have not been further articles so far with useful data in them - the focus in the media has turned to the huge absenteeism situation etc. Should more come in, I will add them to this post as updates.
Anecdotally, though, comments from Ministry staff indicate that application numbers, while more settled, are still consistently above previous norms. One region, which would normally average about 70 applications per month, told me recently they'd received 70 applications in the previous fortnight, which is consistent with the "twice average" indicators. I don't know for certain all regions are still seeing higher then normal numbers, but it seems likely, though there will be small dips and surges.
Anecdotally, though, comments from Ministry staff indicate that application numbers, while more settled, are still consistently above previous norms. One region, which would normally average about 70 applications per month, told me recently they'd received 70 applications in the previous fortnight, which is consistent with the "twice average" indicators. I don't know for certain all regions are still seeing higher then normal numbers, but it seems likely, though there will be small dips and surges.
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