ABOUT 75000 children in South Africa are home schooled.

Association for Home Schooling in SA chairman Bouwe van der Eems says home schooling is growing rapidly in SA as, according to the 2011 census, there were about 57000 home schooled pupils and the figure increased to 75000 last year.

Children who are home schooled receive their education at home from their parents or tutors. Parents are not required to have any qualifications to tutor their children and there is no criteria they have to meet to allow them to teach.

"Research has shown . there is no correlation between the qualification of the parent and the quality of education that the home learners receive. Home learners who receive their education from parents without a matric perform as well as home learners who receive their education from parents with master's degrees. It is not the qualification that makes the difference, but the relationship between the teacher and child," Van der Eems says.

In a home schooling environment pupils learn at their own pace. Van der Eems says on their own children tend to spend sufficient time on a topic in order to master it.

He adds that the environment fosters loving ties between family members.

"Teens seem to benefit enormously from this interaction. Rebellious, destructive behaviour often begins to diminish soon after home schooling begins," Van der Eems says.

Compared to private schools, home schooling payment is per subject.

Subjects are estimated at R5000 each while a separate fee for tutors has to be taken into account at an estimated rate of R250 per hour per subject. Exams have an administration fee of R500 for each subject.