Home Schooling

Understand the legalities of home schooling your children in Switzerland...

Parents have the right to home school their children in most cantons in Switzerland, but the legal requirements vary depending on the canton. The Education Departments in each canton can provide information on both the rights and restrictions.

Families wishing to home school their children must register annually with their town and notify the town school board. Home schooling is supervised and must conform to legal and statutory arrangements.

How to home school

First ensure that home schooling is legal in the canton. A request to home educate should be sent to the relevant Government department. The Swiss education authority sends a form to complete (Enseignement à Domicile in Geneva); on receipt of which the education department (Département de l'instruction publique) issues a letter of approval.

Annual and weekly study plans should be obtained from the local authorities (a year's learning schedule might be available for download for free on the websites of the canton). Teaching materials are sometimes provided for free by a local school.

Authorities’ interventions vary depending on the canton. If visiting find that the teaching methods are unsatisfactory, they can order the parents to send the children to a public school.

Teaching aid is made available by the home school associations.

For more information see: