education is compulsory

"How do I know it will be worthwhile? What advantages will it give them in their future life?"

Above all, you are giving your children the opportunity to be themselves, make decisions for themselves, learn for themselves, make mistakes for themselves. If an autonomous approach has been followed, and with supporting adults to help make their wishes happen, and to fall-back upon if things go wrong, children who haven't been through the school 'conveyor belt' (and hence been moulded as products rather than individuals) will flourish accordingly.

If you are thinking of future education or employment prospects, educational institutes and employers are usually looking for interesting people who they think can complete the course or do the job, not robotic pupils who have been 'fed' all the knowledge they have, forced to learn it parrot-fashion and regurgitate it for an exam, then forget it all.

Because of the more independent and customised type of education that home-educated children have had, they are often more resourceful and entrepreneurial than their school counterparts. Useful fact - the 50 top earners in the UK today have very few formal qualifications between them (Alan Sugar started off with a market stall, Richard Branson started with a van delivering records). They got out there and did what they wanted to do, despite their lack of qualifications.

Non-schooled children often have a confidence and different outlook on life which their schooled counterparts don't have. This partly results from the fact that they have not been continuously tested to satisfy someone-else's agenda, not constantly measured against others, not regarded as backward or below-average in any way, been encouraged to follow their interests and have, on the whole, been treated respectfully as regards what they do and don’t want to do in life. They see their future as more under their own control than predetermined by others. Life is seen as something to look forward to - not a chore.