Home-schooling catching on in the Yukon

More Yukoners than ever are choosing to home-school their children, and government support is being credited with the increase.

About 100 students studied at home in the past year the largest group ever.

Among them was Brin Knight, a 15-year-old who's spent most of her school years at home.

The Grade 10 students uses a curriculum supplied by the Yukon government. "It's really flexible," she says. "You get a lot more in about half as much time."

Since 2001, the Department of Education has provided course materials for home-schoolers.

At first it was just for grades 10 to 12. The following year, grades 8 and 9 were added, and this year, they'll supply home-schooling curricula for all grades.

Lee Kubica of the Department of Education says since the increased support, more home-schoolers are registering their kids.

"There was really no impetus for parents to tell us that they were keeping their students at home, but now, because the programming is available to parents, we found that a lot of the parents who maybe would not have enrolled previously now do enroll so they can take advantage of the programming we're offering."

Prior to 2001 when the government curriculum came in there was about 50 home-schoolers registered with the department. That number has now doubled.

Of those, 74 are in Whitehorse and another 10 are in Watson Lake. Dawson, Carcross, Faro, Haines Junction, Mayo, Old Crow and Ross River all have home-schooled students as well.