Homeschool in MALAYSIA: how do you do it?

Hi all… I teach my 18mo to read and plan to homeschool her until 6yo just before she hits primary school (1st grade). But just recently I started to consider to homeschool her at least until 12yo.

If any parents has experience in homeschooling their children in Malaysia, I would like to know:

  1. the pros and cons of homeschooling in Malaysia.
  2. if there is any legal issues in doing so
  3. how do you get your children taking the standard exams like UPSR PMR and SPM
  4. is it really worthwhile and what are the common challenges, do the family members being supportive and other things I should know before I start to getting ready homeschooling my girl.

You know, my husband doesn’t think it’s a good idea. He supports the breastfeeding and early learning so far but for homeschooling our child, he thinks it’s a bit extreme. If I am into this by my own, what should I be afraid of?

I really appreciate your ten cents of thoughts…

thanks,
nellie

You shouldn’t be afraid of anything, really.
As a mom who has homeschooled and has sent her children to brick and mortar school. Homeschooling wins down as far as I’m concerned.
No one could love and care about your child more than you do. Even with the best schools its hard to find one that will truely let your child to work at their full potential. With homeschooling the sky is the limit. With b&m school they must work along side their classmates whether they full know and understand the material or not.

My 4yr old reads at an early 1st grade level at the moment and it has taken me months to get her teacher to finally let her join in on the reading group in her PreK class. Forget the fact that I told her at the beginning of the year my daughter knew her alphabet inside and out, forget the fact I even put video of her on facebook to prove what I was saying to her was true. It literally has taken 6 months for me to finally get her teacher to let her read a book! If she were at home we would have plowed through books and I wouldn’t of stopped her.

Husbands aren’t generally supportive in the beginning. It took a little bit of showing my husband how well we were doing to let him know that homeschooling was right for our family. Even with my girls attending school this year (becaues they wanted to) homeschooling is still better for our family.
My 2nd daughter is having difficulty with math and instead I would just have stopped at what she was having issues with and continue to work on it until she got it. Instead she is being pushed along with everyone else and the school wants me to have her evaluated for a leraning disability.
In the end remember this. Its not the matter of you being able to homeschool. There is so much available today for those that homeschool that its impossible to say you can’t. Its a matter of you wanting to. You have to have the want.

Sometimes doing a trial of homeschooling at home shows dad that you CAN do it. That’s how we went about it. At least ask for a trial and then if things don’t work out you can send your child to school and do some afterschooling on the side. Because if you don’t have that support from your husband it makes homeschooling very difficult.

Thank you TracyR4. That is encouraging :slight_smile:

I will definitely make it better than the normal school and I hope my husband will see it. I hope he will see the children nowadays are tired for not the right reason, and being sick while it can be avioded. Months ago we attended a seminar on how parents should do more and are encouraged to contribute to children’s daily homeworks and school stuffs and should be spending more time with them afterschools instead of just sending them away for tuitions (extra private classes after school which we have to pay more). It’s like a culture here that every parents should send their children away for extra tuitions afterschools and that shows that you care about the children education etc. Some can cost too much they can actually send their kids to private school! While actually you can skip those extra classes by sitting with them afterschools and do/teach the homeworks together. So, he agrees with that just he can’t see that this is just the same only it will be like full time and not only afterschools.

I will try my best to read all threads in the forum for now and try googling for more info, and it will be helpful to know how they are doing it in Melaysia.

nellie,

dont mean to discourage you, but you should check with minister of education whether it is legal or not. in some countries, it is just illegal to homeschool , Hong Kong being one of them, unfortunately. :frowning:

yes reei, after days of googling about the laws here I still did not find anything. Did I use wrong keywords I dont know. Hmm…
But thanks though :slight_smile:

Hi Nellie,

I’m from Kuala Lumpur, and coincidentally was also doing a bit of research on local preschool curriculum as well as homeschooling for my son who is 28 months old. I managed to stumble upon the following site which supports local homeschoolers. From what I read there is even a centre with lab/library facilities.

http://learningbeyondschooling.org/

Hope that helps.

Hi sunshinebaby, I absalutely love the webpage.

So, I have to send in the application to homeschool for primary school level. At least it is not illegal. Phew. But I wonder how long it takes for it to get approved by MOE. I will read more tonight. Karma to you sunshinebaby.

search for Home School Legal Defense Association and click on the international page. It will tell you if it is legal to homeschool or not.