Homeschooling in India. Can a voice tutor carry the teaching?
Part of it, today. A homeschooling family takes on the one job a school family hands off, which is the teaching itself, and that is the weight Caldra was built to carry. But carrying it means having a lesson for the thing your child is meant to learn that week, and today Caldra has signed lessons for ICSE Class 2 mathematics and Class 2 reading, and for very little else. So it can carry a Class 2 maths morning. It cannot yet carry a year.
The legal position, plainly
General information, not advice, and worth confirming with someone who practises. India's Right to Education Act places a duty on the state and on parents regarding schooling; it does not create an offence of teaching your own child at home, and families across the country do it. For certificates, boards including the National Institute of Open Schooling admit private candidates at the secondary stages, which is the route most homeschooling families in India plan around.
Caldra is not affiliated with NIOS or any other board. Enrolment, registration and certificates come from the board, never from us. If you read anything here as a promise about a certificate, we have written it badly.
A homeschool day with Caldra in it
Morning: your child taps once and talks, and works through what Caldra has planned for them. It knows where they stopped yesterday. You are not in the room and you do not need to be.
Afternoon: your glance. You read what actually happened, the conversation itself, not a score. It takes a couple of minutes and it is the only administration Caldra asks of you.
The rest of the day is yours. Caldra does not fill it and does not try to.
What it takes off you, and what it does not
Off you: choosing the order, remembering what came before, explaining the same thing a fourth time in a different way, and the plan for tomorrow.
Not off you: the subjects it has no lesson for, which today is most of them. Reading aloud together. Anything that needs a hand, a knife, a garden or another child.
What Caldra does not do for a homeschooling family
No certificate, and no route to one. No affiliation with any board. English only, spoken and heard.
And the size of the gap, said plainly: Environmental Studies at Class 2 has no lesson at all. Classes other than 2 have none. The Class 2 page publishes the real position, chapter by chapter, and it is generated from the lessons rather than written by hand.
The questions that follow this one
Is homeschooling legal in India?
As general information rather than legal advice: the Right to Education Act places duties on the state and on parents regarding schooling, and it does not create an offence of teaching your own child at home. For certificates, boards including NIOS admit private candidates at the secondary stages. Confirm your own position with someone who practises.
Can Caldra carry the whole teaching for a homeschooling family?
Not yet. It has signed lessons for ICSE Class 2 mathematics and Class 2 reading and very little else, so it can carry a Class 2 maths morning but not a whole year. The chapter-by-chapter position is published on the Class 2 page.
Does Caldra give a certificate or a board registration?
No. Caldra is not affiliated with NIOS or any other board. Enrolment, registration and certificates come from the board itself.
What does a homeschool day with Caldra look like?
Your child taps once and talks and works through what Caldra has planned, knowing where they stopped yesterday. Later you read the conversation itself rather than a score. That glance is the only administration Caldra asks of you.