This is a shortened summary of a talk I gave at researchED Kent in June 2023. In the original talk, I introduced large language models and issues of student motivation. These are now in separate blog posts that you might want to read first (LLMs, motivation).

Students who dislike school

Few individuals would claim to have had a perfect secondary school experience. While we may hold fond memories of our schooling and feel gratitude towards the teachers we admired, describing it as a flawless experience would be unusual. Perfection in schooling is unattainable as it involves balancing the diverse and competing educational goals for a classroom of 30 children, all with unique needs, within the constraints of a limited budget.

Schooling represents a greater compromise for some students than others. While many navigate their school years with happiness and a strong motivation to learn, others find the school environment considerably more challenging. These students may encounter issues such as bullying, academic pressure, insufficient emotional support, social exclusion, or difficulties adjusting to the school setting.

It’s hard to say how many students really dislike school. According to the 2021 Children’s Commissioner’s ‘Big Ask’ report, 16% of 9–17-year-olds expressed unhappiness with their school experience. The Good Childhood Report 2022 indicates that 1 in 8 children are dissatisfied with school, with discontentment increasing with age. Notably, 14 to 16-year-olds consistently report the lowest levels of happiness.

For those students who struggle daily, feeling confused, disengaged, and bullied for being different, it’s hard to justify their psychological state as morally fair or deserved. Nevertheless, they endure this as an inevitable consequence of a resource-limited schooling system, where large groups of children are managed by a single adult throughout the day.

Their struggle is the natural consequence of an unnatural environment that they will likely not experience in their lives as an adult. It has not been caused by recent education policies, as some like to believe. Historic social studies show us that some children have always been unhappy at school.

Alternatives to schooling today

What options do parents have when their child is unhappy at school? The local school provides a bundle of benefits that extends beyond mere learning opportunities. It encompasses extracurricular activities, socialisation, and serves as childcare for families, among other things. Unbundling the goods of education is hard.

For those with considerable wealth, finding an alternative to traditional schooling is more feasible. The private sector offers progressive and alternative schools, which can help students overcome the social and educational challenges they face in larger institutions. Additionally, home tutors can provide personalised learning, though this comes at a significant cost. Tutorial colleges offer a blend of both in-person and structured learning environments.

However, even this tutorial approach, arguably one of the oldest forms of education, is not without its flaws. Replicating the social aspects of traditional school settings is challenging, and the process of qualifying for and sitting exams like the GCSEs outside the conventional school system is complex.

Unbundling the components of education presents its difficulties. For those with less financial means, elective home-schooling, led by parents, is an option. While not without its challenges, it has become more accessible over the years, thanks to the Internet, specialised resources, and the emergence of online schools. These online schools guide children through their education and can provide virtual social interactions. Although none of these alternatives are inexpensive, their popularity is rising. Precise data is scarce, but elective home education is believed to be growing at a rate of about 15% annually. The latest census on Elective Home Education (EHE) in England suggests that around 100,000 children are being educated at home.

Interestingly, the majority of these children are teenagers, rather than the younger children often associated with home-schooling. Many of these teenagers have left the formal schooling system not due to their family’s educational philosophy but because of their dissatisfaction with the school experience and the inability to cope with its inherent compromises.

My focus here is on these adolescents, as they represent the largest group in elective home education. Moreover, I believe that social, economic, and technological changes are likely to significantly influence the educational possibilities available to these children in the future.

Why alternatives to schooling are on the rise

I see three forces that are fuelling the rise in home education.

Firstly, societal attitudes have shifted. In the 1980s, a typical response from parents to a child who disliked school might have been, “Tough, you have to go”. Today, there is a greater emphasis on children’s mental well-being, and parents are more inclined to seek solutions for an unhappy child. This shift reflects the broader trend of seeking choice and customisation in various aspects of life, including education. Laura McInerney, writing in 2019, discussed the potential for customised schools to meet the diverse needs of families. I go further than here and propose that for some families, a customised solution might not resemble a traditional school at all.

Secondly, economic changes have played a role. A segment of white-collar, skilled workers now find opting out of state education feasible, even though private schooling remains beyond their financial reach. These dual-income families, often with one parent working from home, can more easily manage having adolescents who are learning from home. While unable to afford private school fees, these families have traditionally invested in their children’s development through nurseries, after-school clubs, sports, and musical activities.

Finally, technological advancements have had a significant impact. Parents now have access to online resources that facilitate education outside of traditional schools more effectively than ever before. Moreover, the emergence of online communities has begun to replicate some of the social aspects of school life. These technological innovations are not only enhancing the effectiveness of learning experiences but are also improving online interactions between students, and are attempting to address the challenges associated with motivating adolescents in an educational setting. The extent of success in this area, however, remains to be seen.

Complementary innovation of in-person experiences

It’s quite easy to envisage a future scenario where a 14-year-old studies GCSE courses at home, assisted by an AI bot characterised by infinite patience, optimism, and encouragement, alongside parental supervision. Common consensus suggests that the academic workload of a typical school day can be completed more efficiently at home. However, we can all agree that this setup, despite its efficiencies, is not the ideal educational experience for a teenager. There’s a crucial element missing.

Home educators often discuss the challenges of ensuring adequate social interaction for their children (e.g. see this US article). This includes finding opportunities for activities like physical education and crafts. For in-person social interactions, scale becomes important. As the number of home-educated children increases, so does the likelihood of sustainable social opportunities.

The future could see innovations in online learning platforms being complemented by local, in-person experiences. By 2038, imagine a 14-year-old meeting friends during the day for a sports class at a local leisure centre, then attending a class at a Further Education college. These colleges, traditionally catering to 16-19-year-olds, could offer elective, mixed-age classes in activities best experienced in person – from carpentry to songwriting composition, or even cooking Indian cuisine.

Were these local in-person activities available, I believe the current modest interest in elective home education could swell significantly. This might happen if we reach a tipping point where local daytime offerings in sports, arts and crafts, tailored to adolescent interests, become widely available. The infrastructure for such offerings – in terms of instructors and venues – is partially established, thanks to the existing market for after-school activities. Once there’s sufficient demand for daytime classes, the market is likely to respond accordingly.

Social interactions in this setting would be quite distinct from those in a school environment – neither superior nor inferior, simply different. Adolescents would engage with a diverse group of individuals of varying ages, a scenario I find less peculiar than the age-segregated interactions typical in schools. The consistency of interacting with the same peers in a formal class setting would, for better or worse, no longer be a feature.

Inequalities in access to alternative education

This vision of future alternative education is certainly not for everyone. The benefits of choice and customisation in education are likely to be accessible primarily to those who can afford it. This includes families who, despite finding private schooling unaffordable, have the means for alternative education methods. It also includes families where an adult can work from home, providing the necessary supervision for home education, and those with children who are self-motivated learners in an environment where traditional forms of educational coercion are more absent.

This shift could significantly alter the social makeup of those attending traditional schools, potentially skewing it towards lower-income families. It could also disproportionately affect children who are unable to work independently at home without causing distractions for working parents.

Such a shift would not only affect classroom dynamics but also pose substantial risks for public policy. The advocacy for adequate state education funding often relies on a politically and educationally informed social class. If these individuals’ children begin to move towards alternative forms of education, the question arises: who will champion the cause for better funding in traditional state schools?

What is needed for change

Predicting the future is as much a challenge for me as it is for anyone. However, we can observe and extrapolate from current trends. The accessibility of home-based education is set to improve, especially for those with the financial means. It seems almost certain that we will see a continued steady rise in elective home education, growing to perhaps 3% of the child population. Middle-class children who are profoundly unhappy with traditional schooling will likely find more suitable alternatives.

Yet, the overall appeal of home education will probably remain limited to a select group of children. The majority still value and actively pursue genuine human interactions. For home education to emerge as a more widespread choice, a significant expansion in localised, non-core curricular services is needed. This growth will be viable only if the demand for these services reaches a critical mass, particularly in urban and semi-urban areas. As a result, I foresee a future where either a small or a significantly larger portion – perhaps as much as 20% – of children might opt out of traditional schools.

The social, economic, and technological changes I mentioned are bound to continue. The pivotal question is whether these changes will be impactful enough to disrupt the current equilibrium. Historically, policy landscapes have often been marked by extended periods of stability, interspersed with major shifts brought on by significant societal transformations. For more than a century in England, schools have been teenagers’ primary daytime educational institutions, a system that evolved from industrial revolutions and world wars.

So, are we approaching a major paradigm shift within our lifetimes? Could we reach a tipping point where societal structures for adolescents adapt to technological advancements, akin to how workplaces have finally embraced remote working? Only time will tell.