I never heard of homeschooling until I had my child. I only knew we did home after-school lessons nothing more but in looking for activities for my son I was opened up to the world of homeschooling but I didn’t explore it. All I saw was that it was a whole lot of work and I wasn’t even qualified to teach. So, I put in the back burner. 

Fast forward to when my son became 18 months and we were ready to find a school for him. I had checked and seen questions to ask, what to look out for and asked for recommendations from friends and I was ready! 

I visited the first school and the next and the next and the next and here are the reasons why I decided to homeschool;

  1. Quality of the schools I found: I wasn’t very excited about the schools I found. It was either too dark and gloomy or I was worried about the number of children in a classroom, hygiene, curriculum, security. I just wasn’t satisfied. When I eventually found one school I loved, it was pricey and other recommended schools are too far - I don’t believe in waking up a child at 5am to go to school. 
  2. Cost vs value: My son was 18 months at the time and school (the one I liked) for that age runs from 8 - 1pm and my son is on a routine where he takes his afternoon nap between 11 - 1pm and I decided to weigh the options. Considering the cost of the school, which was very high, being that he would only be awake for about 4 hours, didn’t make sense to me. 
  3. He couldn’t talk: At this point, I dragged my husband who wasn’t so excited to see some of the schools but after our search, he said he wasn’t very excited about him going to school yet because he couldn’t talk very well. With the increasing rate of different issues on child abuse (In different forms) one can’t be too careful. He mentioned that when you put him in a school and anything happens to him, he won’t be able to say what happened. 

With all of these, I really started to think about my son’s education. 

  • If he was going to go to school, what will they be teaching him? 
  • If I am going to keep him at home until he can fully express himself, what should he know to prepare him for that time? 
  • Are they even going about education the right way in Nigeria?

I started my research and little by little got immersed into the world of homeschooling, discovering that it is actually something that is beginning to take off in Nigeria as more parents are deciding to take on the responsibility of home educating their children which is an amazing thing. 


In the course of my research I have been forced to think about my own journey with education  and how I don’t want that with my son. In my our day and age, your worth was tied to your report card, your level of intelligence was tied to how many As you had and growing up you discover that it not how life works and this seemingly little thing has formed how you see yourself as an individual. 

This journey has helped me to see that I don’t have to ‘mindlessly’ do something because it is the natural next steps to do it but go deeper into asking “why” and knowing if it is the best decision to make for your child. Example, it was the natural next thing to send him to school but exploring homeschooling helped me to think about my educational philosophy and now while I may not know all what I want for him, I know exactly what I don’t want for him.

This short journey has led me to meet so many amazing people e.g Damilola & The ALC family (KeyAcademy ), Sheuntunde who have made a difference in my journey. 
It has opened up my world to learn more about education, our educational philosophy, my son’s approach to learning and deciding to document my journey to also help more parents who want to do the same. I may not have initially set out to homeschool my son but I am glad the journey had led me here!