The Secret Life of a Homeschooler in China

With a population over 1.35 billion and a reported 200 million school-age children, China has a massive potential for homeschool growth that is unmatched in any other country.

“If only a tiny fraction of these students begin to be homeschooled over the next few decades, the number could very quickly climb past the 1.7 million homeschool students in America,” wrote June Cheng and Angela Lu in a recent article for WORLD Magazine.

Unfortunately, homeschooling is illegal in China; however, that hasn’t stopped parents from educating their children at home in the world’s most populous country.

One woman who lives on the outskirts of the capital city of Beijing was given the pseudonym Rebecca Deng for WORLD’s report. After teaching in an international Christian school for 10 years, Deng was motivated to offer alternative forms of education to students in China. She now homeschools her sixth grade son, participates in a co-op she started that consists of approximately two dozen children, and organizes an English club for her 2-year-old and other young children in her apartment complex.

Deng admits there are plenty of challenges for the average parent in China, including a lack of teacher stores and Chinese-language teaching material, but she has helped start a seed in the socialist country that could bloom into something huge.