Why homeschooling fails in India?

Over the last few years, I’ve met many parents who started homeschooling their children in India, only to return to traditional schooling within a year.

They weren’t under-qualified or ill-prepared. On paper, they had everything that should have made homeschooling work:

• Well-educated parents
• One parent at home full-time
• Strong social networks
• A city environment with plenty of children to play with

Yet, they couldn’t sustain it.

I spoke to them—not to persuade them otherwise, but to understand why. My goal wasn’t to spread homeschooling, but to learn what might make me wrong about it so I could avoid those pitfalls myself.

What I discovered was surprising.

# The First Contrarian Decision

For many of these parents, homeschooling was the first contrarian decision they had ever taken.

Until then, they had gone with the flow of family and societal expectations:

• Studied the subjects their parents chose (often engineering)
• Married according to family wishes (sometimes even in love marriages, but still within acceptable boundaries)
• Took stable IT jobs
• Stayed in the same city or went abroad, like many of their peers

Homeschooling was the first time they broke from that script.

# Why They Started

These parents genuinely cared for their children’s future. They were concerned that India’s traditional schooling system was failing to prepare kids for a world where school-taught skills no longer guarantee career success.

They believed in the reasons for homeschooling. They weren’t dabbling—they were committed.

# Why They Stopped

Once they began, they faced relentless family and societal pressure:

“My grandson will fall behind the others.”
“You’re making my grandkid asocial.”
“Do you think you know better than everyone else in the family?”

This was daily, relentless, and often emotionally loaded.

Without prior experience in going against the grain, they had no “contrarian muscle” to withstand the pressure. The stress of family disapproval was harder to bear than the challenges of homeschooling itself.

Eventually, they gave up—not because they believed schooling was better, but because it was easier.

They now live with the quiet guilt of knowing they’ve compromised on something they once believed was right.

# Why I Stayed the Course

For me, homeschooling wasn’t a leap into the unknown—it was simply the next step in a lifetime of contrarian decisions:

• At 17, I dropped my caste name (a huge deal in rural India)
• I became an independent IT consultant
• I chose to work only three days a week
• My sons carry their mother’s surname instead of mine

These decisions taught me how to handle resistance—from relatives, neighbours, and society at large.

And importantly, I live in a different city, far from my immediate and extended family. We meet only once or twice a year. This physical distance shielded me from daily judgment and gave me the space to let our homeschooling results speak for themselves.

After two to three years, even my parents—once skeptical—saw the growth in my children and said it was the best decision I’d made.

# The Real Lesson

Homeschooling requires more than resources, education, or intent.

It requires the ability to go against the grain for years, not days.

If homeschooling is your first big contrarian decision, be prepared: building the mental and emotional resilience to withstand societal pressure might be harder than teaching your child algebra.

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