Maverick Valle has the freedom to study wherever he chooses, whether it’s aboard his family boat or between shifts at his part-time job.
At 18, he has just finished his final year of study and is one of many students across the country who are being homeschooled.
This trend is growing, with the number of families leaving traditional schools to enroll their children in homeschooling programs doubling since 2019.
The 18-year-old, along with his father Brent, turned to homeschooling when they started working together.
Maverick explained that he felt like time was being wasted spending six hours a day at school.
“I didn’t really like school and I thought I was wasting my time, and when I realized I could work and do a little school on the side, I thought it was a good idea,” Maverick said.
“Dad and I started talking about working together and we thought it would be a good idea to finish 12th grade, so we looked around and looked at all the options we could take and we found Euka.”
Euka is the nation’s largest online full-time home tutoring provider for students in Kindergarten through 12th grade.
“Kids have different learning speeds, different learning requirements, different learning tastes, so being able to learn at their own pace… That’s really rewarding,” said Euka CEO Brett Campbell.
From 2019 the number of Australian children enrolled in home education has more than doubled.
In Victoria, registrations have jumped by more than seven per cent in the past 12 months.
Maverick has been out of regular school since the 10th grade and already has two years of experience in sales and marketing for the technology company founded by his father.
He earns about $30,000 a year.
Research into why parents choose homeschooling shows that the majority make the decision because of social issues such as bullying.
Homeschool enrollment is expected to continue to increase, driven in part by the increasing ability of families to travel and work remotely while educating their children.
