This blog records media interest in home education throughout North East England. It will focus on the campaign against the government’s apparent determination to decimate home education and, along with it, many civil liberties that all parents take for granted.
In January 2009, Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, commissioned Graham Badman to produce a review of home education. This was based on the unfounded pretext that home education might be used as a cover for child abuse, domestic servitude or forced marriage. If any other minority group had been so slurred on so little evidence there might have been an outcry, nevertheless the review went ahead. The research process was not a lengthy one, with less than cursory nods to the available literature on home education, some highly debatable statistics (see here and here), and a very heavy emphasis on Mr Badman’s personal opinions. Yet Ed Balls accepted the review in full almost as soon as (if not before) the ink was dry.
The Badman Report’s recommendations should send chills into the hearts not only of home educators, but of all parents. It suggests an annual licensing scheme, whereby home educators would need to satisfy local authority officials of the suitability of their educational provision. The report calls this ‘registration’ but, as it involves an annual requirement to obtain permission, this is licensing in all but name. Controversially, even in cases where there are no concerns about the suitability of education, if parents refuse to allow local authority officers to interview children as young as five on their own, the license to home educate could be revoked. Please pause for a moment to take in the full implications of this. Very young children are to be left alone with strangers in order to be interviewed (precisely when does the equivalent happen in schools?). And the burden of proof has been reversed, with families presumed guilty until proven innocent. It could be argued that career criminals have greater protection from unnecessary intrusion than this. Fundamental civil liberties could be eroded before our eyes.
The government have incorporated some of this dodgy dossier’s recommendations into Schedule 1 of the Children, Schools and Families Bill, which clearly seeks to remove the right of parents to decide how their children should be educated.
In December 2009, the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee published a report that was extremely critical of both the Badman review and the proposed legislation. In the same month, a record-breaking number of MPs presented a Parliamentary Petition from their constituents which called for the removal of the home education aspects of the Bill (to be replaced by effective implementation of the perfectly adequate law as it stands). While the Bill has not yet passed, there is still enough time for it to do so before the next general election. And so the fight continues.
The media coverage listed here could be seen as a celebration of the work of North East home educators. It’s also the tip of the iceberg, with very many people doing all they can to preserve what is a highly successful form of education.
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