Homeschooling

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This week, we’re diving into a subreddit that has been growing rapidly during the pandemic:

r/homeschooling

It does not come as a surprise that homeschooling has been a trending topic over the course of the pandemic. But even as life begins to normalize in countries all over the world, this trend might be here to stay.

Similar to working remotely from home, the pandemic has shown that alternative ways of education are in fact viable and desirable for a lot of people. This is why we think that the trend to homeschooling won’t go anywhere and should be analyzed in terms of new opportunities for entrepreneurs.

Here are the four most relevant problems we encountered in r/homeschooling ⬇️

👩‍🦱 Advice for Parents

Problem: Managing homeschooling is difficult

Homeschooling parents (and those who consider becoming it) have different backgrounds and different motivations for educating their kids at home. However, they all face significant challenges as they try to do it right.

Some seek general advice on how to manage homeschooling and work life, while others need advice on how to deal with kids’ learning disabilities or look for knowledge on legal aspects of homeschooling.

Solution: Individual consultancy for homeschooling parents

Parents look for advice in r/homeschooling, but their problems are often too complex or too specific to get adequate help on Reddit. Someone with experience in the matters above could be extremely valuable to those parents. Giving online counseling sessions (or setting up a platform and hiring experts) could be exactly the right format for these types of issues.

🎲 Social Activities Platform

Problem: Homeschooled kids need activities and socializing opportunities outside of their homes

Many parents fear that homeschooling takes away too many socializing opportunities from their kids. This is why they are grateful for activities and socializing opportunities for their kids, both online and offline.

Solution: A platform for organizing online and offline social activities

Most homeschooling parents don’t have the time or knowledge to set up a space for holding online events or organizing offline activities. Launching a platform for this purpose could be a real opportunity.

📖 Index of Educational Resources

Problem: Parents look for educational resources all the time

A parent asking for educational resources is probably the most common type of post in r/homeschooling. Their requests range from asking for very general resources (teaching “how to think”) to opinions on certain online academies, programs for specific grades, and non-religious curricula.

Solution: An index for homeschooling educational resources

While parents usually get some helpful suggestions in r/homeschooling, they would definitely profit from a more systematic way of finding the right resources. An index that would allow filtering by specific categories (like grade, or religious/non-religious) would make life a lot easier for homeschooling parents.

📱 Apps for Homeschooling

Problem: Some aspects of homeschooling require tech solutions

Interestingly, there seem to be quite a lot of technical aspects to homeschooling. These range from gamification of education to organizing the curriculum and limiting distractions from learning.

Solution: Apps for homeschoolers

While some apps for gamifying education and solving other problems around homeschooling already exist, the market does not seem to be over-saturated. Software engineers could use r/homeschooling to get a precise idea of what apps parents want for their kids. Once they have developed an app, they could effectively promote it in this subreddit.