If ever there was a moment to address the issue of home-schooling, it is now. The pandemic has disrupted teaching, school life and examinations in catastrophic ways. Many children will now never get the education they would have had. But every crisis is an opportunity — and this crisis offers the chance to reform education in radical ways for the better.
Britain could learn a lot from New Zealand. Since 1922, the Kiwis have run a state-funded national correspondence school, known now in Maori as Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu (Te Kura for short). In Western Australia, a similar school has existed since 1918 and is known as the School of Isolated and Distance Education.
The Correspondence School/Te Kura approach is not a revolutionary concept. It is similar in many ways to the Open University. In New Zealand, Te Kura has delivered distance or home learning to children at all school levels over many generations.
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