In Canada, homeschooling has increased in popularity since the advent of the 21st century. In general, homeschooling in Canada is pretty easy. Our biggest challenges are mostly around the costs of shipping and the US – CDN dollar exchange rate and finding resources that are from a Canadian perspective. Hopefully, these 6 steps will help you feel more confident in your search for more information about how to homeschool in Canada. If you need more information from here, I recommend checking out the Getting Started section of this website or signing up to get a copy of my How to Homeschool in Canada ebook which goes into each of these sections in more detail.
Unlike the United States for example, where homeschooling is often a consequence of religious conviction, a study of 1,600 families in 2003 found that Canadians primarily choose to homeschool out of a desire to provide better education. For those children whose parents decided to homeschool out of a desire for better education, a 2003 study found statistical significance between traditionally schooled and homeschooled students’ scores on standardized tests of writing, reading, and mathematics.
According to Statistics Canada, “homeschooling is an alternative method of learning that takes place outside the public or private school environment. Parents choosing to homeschool have the primary responsibility of managing, delivering, and supervising their children’s courses and program of learning, which can vary from a very structured curriculum to free-form learning” (2013). Donnelly defined homeschooling as the elective practice whereby children are educated directly under the personal oversight of their parents, often, though not exclusively, by their parents and usually in a home setting. Advocates, practitioners, and researchers alike grapple with the terminology of this new and innovative form of education. Depending on the philosophical [or pedagogical] orientation, country of origin, and other factors, homeschooling is also known as home-based education, home education, unschooling, home-centered learning, home instruction, deschooling, autonomous learning, and child-centered learning. (2012: 200)²