Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the median cost was for a home-schooled student to sit five GCSEs, including mathematics and English in each of the last five years.

There is provision in the Education Act 1996 to support parents who decide to have their children home-schooled. In doing so, parents are also accepting full responsibility for the consequences, including any costs incurred.

The Department does not collect data on the charges made by schools to private GCSE candidates. These costs are decided by the individual exam centre at which the pupil sits their examinations, and will include fees charged by the awarding organisations for their work in developing, processing and awarding qualifications. Exam centres are likely to include an administrative fee to cover costs incurred for providing facilities for a private candidate.

The Department does not collect data on the number of home-schooled children or the quality of their education and so no assessment can be made of the impact of the costs on the educational achievements of home-schooled children.