Schools around New Zealand are facing increases in home schooling applications since the announcement of mask mandates for children in Year 4 and above.

Rural schools have seen increases in applications ranging from three per cent 20 per cent, says Rural Schools Leadership Association president Andrew King.

Last year the government announced children in Years 4 to 13, as well as staff, would be required to wear a mask indoors if the country went to the red traffic light setting.

With New Zealand now at the red setting, children and teachers are starting the school year while adapting to the new rules.

'What we're seeing, and it's happening across the country, is a reaction from those who don't want to send their kids to school because of the mask mandates,” says Andrew, who is also the principal at Oropi School.

'They're all doing home schooling applications, which is not actually the solution.

'If they do a home schooling application, you've got six to eight weeks before that gets approved.”

Ministry of Education operations and integration leader Sean Teddy says since September 2021, there has been a significant increase in enquiries from parents about home education.

'We are currently assessing a large number of home education applications and decisions are taking longer than usual, on average more than six weeks,” says Sean.

'While waiting for their application to be assessed, legally all children aged over six years must be enrolled at and attending school, children can enrol at age five and then they must attend.

'Home education is not a short-term solution. To home educate well, parents need to thoroughly research and plan their approach.”

Andrew says solutions for parents concerned about the mask mandates are at home learning, mask exemptions, providing they meet the ministry's criteria, or simply attending school.

Andrew wants to reassure parents that school staff won't be disciplining students around mask wearing simply reminding them.

'I don't want the school day to be wasted enforcing it,” he says.

'Kids are going to need breaks from wearing masks. That's where we'll send them outside, to play a game or do some learning outside of the classroom.”

The principal's advice to teachers is: 'Tell your kids the guidelines, what's expected of them and remind them every now and then, but please don't make a make a big deal of it”.

'Advice from the ministry is we are not enforcers,” he says. 'We do our best to encourage and support people to fulfil the mandate.”

'The safety and wellbeing of students and staff is the top priority for every school or kura, who will have their own plan that best meets the needs of their school community at all colour settings,” says Sean.

Western Bay of Plenty Principal's Association president Suzanne Billington says there are 'a lot of principals' talking about high numbers of home education applications on the closed Facebook page for New Zealand principals.

'It has quite an impact on smaller schools,” she says. 'Because if there are eight kids out of a small roll it can mean quite a bit.”

'Even if you're only talking three or four kids per school, there's more than 2000 schools [in New Zealand], so that's a lot of kids,” says Andrew.

Ministry of Education data from January 11, shows a steady incline in nationwide home education applications from August last year. The applications reached their peak in November 2021 at around 900 applications.

National data for November 2020 shows there were around 200 applications and in November 2019 there were around 150 applications.

In 2021 there were 388 home education applications submitted for the Bay of Plenty out of 3811 nationwide. There are 135 applications for the Bay of Plenty still pending, with November applications currently being processed.

Comparatively there were around 200 home education applications in the Bay of Plenty in 2020 and around 150 in 2019.

Advice from the ministry is the 2021 data is live and subject to change. Data for 2022 applications is not yet available.