Ever More Russians Homeschooling Their Children, Many to Escape Kremlin War Propaganda

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 5 – Although relatively few Russian parents homeschool their children, the number who do has been increasing rapidly in recent years, with many of those now deciding to educate their children at home to avoid the increasing militarization of the curriculum in Russia’s government schools.

            Although the some 200,000 Russian children now being homeschooled makes up a miniscule percentage of the roughly 18 million in public schools, the number of those homeschooled has been rising rapidly (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/05/rossiyane-nachali-tisyachami-zabirat-detei-iz-shkol-na-domashnee-obuchenie-posle-usileniya-voennoi-propagandi-a186473

            A decade ago, there were only 17,900 children being homeschooled, roughly one tenth of one percent of the total; now, they form almost one percent of the total, with much of the increase coming in the last four years, the period during which Vladimir Putin has been conducting his expanded war in Ukraine.

            There are few official figures about this – and they do not count homeschooled children not attacked to a public school -- and even less data about why parents choose to homeschool. But there are some obvious reasons: rising violence in schools and especially the militarization of the public educational system, a cause that the Moscow Times identifies as a major reason. 

            Many Russian politicians are opposed to homeschooling believing that it keeps young Russians from being socialized in the directions the Kremlin wants. But few are trying to block it altogether because it remains popular in families where at least one of parents does not work or does not work fulltime and thus can manage this form of instruction.