If there’s one thing that Covid has taught us, it’s that children can quickly fall behind with their learning if school is disrupted.

Millions of learners across the country lost valuable learning time last year when schools closed for weeks at a time and, while many were able to continue with their learning virtually, many more were not.

Already this year schools have had to delay their January reopening, and, as President Ramaphosa has indicated that there will be more Covid-19 waves to come, this could mean further disruptions to the school calendar.

These disruptions undoubtedly have an impact on learners, which may have a direct impact on their future.

With all this in mind, why not turn to home schooling?

Many families do not have the luxury of being able to live off a single salary, which means that full-time working parents must still find time in the evenings – when the children are tired – to go through their virtual lessons while schools are closed.

Education is essential and learning must be prioritised.

Home schooling is not what it used to be – where a parent who doesn’t work would sit with their child and hope to be able to teach them their syllabus.

These days, there are a variety of accredited tutorial centres and organisations offering to teach your children for you

And with the onset of Covid-19 and lockdown, more online learning centres have come into being.

Parents not wanting to expose their children to the risk of contracting Covid-19 – and risk infecting other family members – is the primary reason many parents are crossing over to home schooling their children, but there are many other reasons to choose virtual learning.

For some people, home schooling fits in better with their lifestyle, for others they feel the peer pressure at schools is just too great for young children to bear, while still others believe their children focus better when home schooled.

There is no question that 2020 was an extremely disruptive schooling year for learners, so to prevent a repeat of that in 2021, the logical way forward would be to make the change to home schooling, and now is the ideal time to do so.