• One in four respondents is dissatisfied with the homeschooling situation
• Around 60 per cent of children miss friends and teachers
• Half of the students use digital learning apps or tutoring platforms in addition to the school materials to avoid gaps in their knowledge.

"How well does distance learning and homeschooling work in Germany?" Not particularly well, as results of a recent online survey by KB&B, the leading specialist agency for family and children's marketing in Germany, and the learning platform scoyo show. 44 percent of children are significantly less able to learn at home than at school. Among parents, almost one in four (23 percent) is dissatisfied or even very dissatisfied with the current situation.

"Children and families have been on our minds for more than 20 years - and rarely have they undergone such a transformation as in recent months. The realities of their lives have changed massively: In many areas for the better, as the nuclear family can often spend more time together - but there are also negative developments, which are coming to the fore especially now in times of homeschooling. We took a closer look at these as part of the study together with the learning platform scoyo," says Rolf Kosakowski, Managing Director of the special agencies for children and family marketing KB&B. Daniel Bialecki, CEO of scoyo, pleads for parents to create more structures together with their children: "For good homeschooling, structures and learning concepts must be taught - this has hardly taken place so far! That's why it was so important for us to use the study to get an up-to-date picture of the mood among parents and students. The results confirm this: Homeschooling must be taught.

Home office and homeschooling difficult to reconcile

Overall, about 80 per cent of students in Germany are currently homeschooling. However, 50 per cent of the parents surveyed cannot work from home. This difference alone highlights a structural problem of distance education: Good school supervision is not always guaranteed at home. Either because parents do not have the opportunity to work from home in the first place or because they themselves are heavily involved at their desks at home. On average, only six percent of all children make use of the emergency care offered in schools.

The concerns are manifold

The greatest concern of parents is the lack of planning ability due to too short-term decisions on the part of the politicians - this was stated by 63.3 percent of the respondents. In addition, around 61.2 percent of parents are concerned about the social consequences and fear that their children's social skills will suffer as a result of the measures. Parents' satisfaction with their children's homeschooling situation varies greatly: 31.5 percent are largely satisfied, while 24.1 percent are rather dissatisfied. While almost half (47 percent) of the parents feel adequately supported by the school and the teachers, 40 percent said they were concerned about a lack of support or no support at all.

Around 60 per cent of the children miss their friends and teachers.

It is clear that the children are particularly affected by the lack of social contacts: 58.7 per cent of the children stated that they miss their friends in the distance learning classes. In addition, 59.1 per cent of the children miss personal contact with their teachers. Despite all the concerns, more than half of the children (57 per cent) said that they get along well with the current model of distance learning - 28 per cent, on the other hand, said they do not get along so well.

The biggest problems in homeschooling: infrastructure and lack of individuality

There are some hurdles in the implementation of distance learning: 40 per cent state that they experience problems in learning due to school learning platforms not working at times, e.g. due to overload. Another 40 per cent named an unstable internet connection as a central problem, which was disrupted or too slow during video conferences, for example.

Another hurdle is the regularity of assignments and their difficulty: 27 per cent of pupils and 24 per cent of parents said that teachers send them assignments too irregularly or that the deadlines for completion are too short. One fifth (20 per cent) of all children regularly feel either overchallenged or underchallenged by the assignments they receive. Parents estimate the proportion to be higher: Overall, 32 per cent of parents said their child was regularly under- or over-challenged with the assignments.

Is the future of learning becoming more digital?

Half (49.5 percent) of the respondents use digital learning apps or tutoring platforms in addition to school materials to avoid or close gaps in knowledge. Learning platforms that take a playful approach to imparting knowledge, such as scoyo, are particularly popular with parents and students. They also offer teachers free, well-founded content for digital and hybrid teaching.

72.8 per cent of all parents assume that digital learning will also be part of the lessons under normal conditions for pupils in the future. At the same time, however, only 39 percent of parents would support this.

About the methodology.

With the help of an online survey via the FACT family tool, a total of 27 questions on the topic of homeschooling were answered by 721 participants (including 416 children and 305 parents) between 1 February 2021 and 5 February 2021. FACT family is the largest German online panel for direct questioning of children and parents, which is part of KB&B. The target group is school children. The target group is school children aged 5 to 17 and their parents.