HOME schooling is the major irritant of the week.

Today, I take a radical, out-of-character-stance and come out in favour of the Education Ministry.

The local debate raging over home schooling focuses on two areas: the definition of a home school, and home-school standards.

Recently, I was talking to a young mother in the grocery store. She said she'd taken her six-year-old out of the public education system to home school. The child has a severe disability. In a mainstream school setting she would probably be left to vegetate. To these parents I say: Way to go! Home school for this child is probably the best chance she has.

But home schools, with a parent teaching a single child, are not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the growing home-school industry in Bermuda. In many cases local home schools consist of a teacher and 12 or more students.

Many parents, particularly those with children with behavioural and learning difficulties, are desperate to find suitable education without having to leave the island. Most of these home schools charge the going private school rate per child.

This would be fine if they were getting the same services offered in a private school, but in some cases they aren't.

OVER the last two years I have written a few articles about home schooling. Most of the homeschools I have talked with are theory-based. Students work on sets of Christian-oriented booklets on different subjects. The student finishes one. They take the test at the back of the book, they go on to the next booklet.

There's very little of anything else. Most of the schools I spoke with don't offer art, music or physical education in any meaningful way. The common refrain when asked about the music or physical education programme is: "We're trying to set one up."

The facilities themselves usually consist of a family home designed for four people. Twelve or more students are often crammed into tiny, badly-lit rooms. Often the only playground is a small backyard. And I fail to see how home-school teachers could be allowed to keep the equipment and chemicals needed for science lessons in their house.

On some occasions I was told there were only four or five students in the home school when I could plainly see more heads than that craned over their books.

The whole purpose of home schooling is one-on-one attention, not 12-on-one attention. Another purpose of home schooling is to direct the child's attention to school work and away from social distractions. You can't do this with 12 students in the class. When I took the orientation session for the CedarBridge Academy Read to Succeed programme (which I have since left), we were given a chart that showed the signs of agitation in a student at various levels. Then we were told that hardly any of the volunteers had ever needed the chart, because when the student is away from the judgmental gaze of peers negative classroom behaviours tend to fall away. I found this to be true.

In contrast, I have seen a tutoring relationship change dramatically with the addition of just one more child. I can't imagine anyone suggesting 12 on one is almost as good as one-on-one attention.One good reason to monitor home schools is the question of "who". Who is teaching these children? When I applied to be a volunteer, I was vetted to make sure I didn't have a criminal record. This is standard procedure. And a teacher applying to a public or private school would also be given a background check (one would hope).

Who checks the backgrounds of the people running the home schools? Does the average parent know how to run a police check on a home-school teacher?

I'm sure most home-school teachers have only the best intentions, but this climate of parental desperation could open the door to child predators. And if we've learned anything from the Catholic priest fiascos in the United States, you can't trust anyone.

The Government should also make sure that home-school students are being taught what they need to know. Parents should have some way of ascertaining how well their students compare to students in regular schools on the island.

Why are so many home schools afraid of standardised testing? I say to home schools, put your money where your mouth is. Don't just tell me your kids are doing better than they would in a regular school - prove it.

I say home schools should be monitored just the same as any other school. In fact, the Government should be making inspections to make sure everything is running as it should. Come to think of it, maybe they should be making a few spot checks on their own facilities while they're at it.