The government loves micro-managing classrooms in the state sector. And why not, you might ask? It's their money, and if they want to decide what consitutes great literature, a major historical event or the right way to introduce literacy, then who are we taxpayers to quibble?
But the government often tires of its own toys and experiences an irrepressible desire to reach out and play with the education of children who don't use state schools. This would seem not to be their business, until you remember this is the 21st century and they hold both the rights'n'responsibilities card and the child protection card.
The latest finger-dipping is yet another review into home education, the Elective Home Education Review, which will be the fourth review into home education since 2005. Education, education, education, education: if only reviews were outcomes...
Headed by Graham Badman, the EHER will consider
1) Whether local authorities and other public agencies are able to effectively discharge their duties and responsibilities for safeguarding and ensuring a suitable education for all children.
2) Whether home educating parents are receiving the support and advice they want to ensure they provide a good, balanced education for their children.
3) What evidence there is to support claims that home education could be used as a ‘cover’ for child abuse such as neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.
Allow me to translate.
1) In 2006, The Education and Inspections Act placed a duty on all local authorities to make arrangements to identify children not receiving "a suitable education". Without knowing what happens in your living room, they can't make that judgement. So inspectors need to be sent into people's homes to gather that information. But we don't know how many children are home educated - between 20,000 (DCSF) and 50,000 (Education Otherwise) - so expect a policy requiring parents to register their home-educated children with the local education authority.
2) Home educating parents often do not want or seek advice from the LEA: it is, after all, the organisation whose schools they are avoiding. Nor are they under any obligation to receive such advice. But as Mr Badman reminded the BBC "Legislation affords every parent the right to choose to educate their child at home but with those rights go responsibilities, not least being to secure a suitable education." Expect the word "suitable" to be defined by Mr Badman and the inspectors to have a strong mandate.
3) The child protection card. If the government can find a single example of neglect or abuse, it gives it the green light to investigateand regulate the lives of all home educators. You can only find a bad apple by checking all your apples. The government hasn't yet given an example of alleged abuse - Education Otherwise asked for the evidence and none was provided - but making the claim means that a claim has been made and must, therefore, be investigated.
Parents have a right to educate their children privately or using the state system. This private education can be in a school or at home. Parents who choose home education are often helping their children to escape the abuse of bullying, or get out from the anti-learning culture of their LEA schools. The government is heaping review after review on these people and branding them as potential abusers.
The government wants to control and regulate the education of every child. How else can it guarantee every child an equal start in life? Parents may play the freedom card, but rights'n'responsibilities and child protection will surely beat it.
Thursday, 22 January 2009
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7 comments:
The answer?
CCTV cameras in every British home. Simple. Get on the blower to Millbank.
Great to see you blogging again Neill.
Not sure how much of this I agree with (as you might expect me to say...)
As a starter for 10 whilst I think about it a bit more - is it that unreasonable for all parents who choose to home educate their children to notify the LA that they are doing so? In much the same way that the LA is required to keep records on excluded pupils, pupils in alternative provision, pupis not being educated within its own borders etc?
When the LA becomes responsible for a child, they must keep records. But the education system is opt-in, not opt-out. Parents who, despite paying tax towards it, choose not to use the state-funded school system, should not be forced to justify that decision, still less register with the state for permission to exercise their right.
I'm not sure I agree. The Government has made education compulsory up to 16 (soon to be 18). To ensure that this law is upheld, and because the government has a duty of care towards all children, the onus is on the state to check that all children are being educated.
Given that the duty is on the state, it is not unreasonable for them to seek to excercise this duty by providing free at the point of use schooling, and operating an opt out system with checks on that group to ensure that the children are still being educated. The fact that schooling in the state sector is the choice of around 92% of all children further suggests that an opt out system is a sensible and practical model of governance.
I'm not expressing this too clearly, and I haven't thought through all the conceptual implications of my viewpoint with regards to other public services. But in general, I just don't think I wholly buy your libertarian model of citizen - state engagement (see also civil liberties [discussions passim])
Hooray, Neill is blogging again!
Great to see you starting back. I didn't always agree, but I did always find it interesting.
"An opt out system is a sensible and practical mode of governance" is absolutely right. It makes sense to the 92% who use state schools and only a subset of the other 8% have a very minor administrative burden placed upon them. Through that lens, I must just seem to like being awkward.
In my defence, there are a lot of low-burden administrative duties on citizens which I would oppose on the same grounds. The requirement to check in with the local police every month or have to fill in a monthly census questionnaire(to help target statutorily-mandated local services); checkpoints on major entry points into our cities (for security purposes or to help plan transport provision). These are a minor burden, but, I would argue, still an important one, a long way from the ordinary freedoms we would expect to enjoy in peacetime.
I wonder whether you would agree with these policies, should they prove convenient to governance - or what alternative arguments you could marshal against them.
I'm also not sure the libertarian label is helpful. There are all sorts of scenarios where we might agree the state has a role in making choices on behalf of other people: perhaps drugs policy. However, in this instance, we both accept that parents are exercising a right they hold - to teach their children at home. The disagreement is whether they should have to fulfil an administrative duty in advance of exercising this right.
I think the distinctions I draw here are based upon two strands of thought:
1) what are the costs of fulfilling this state requirement, set against the benefits? Is this a one off registration with the LA for example, or is it a duty to complete a monthly census or report in with the police?
2) Is this an issue where protection of minors is concerned, or is it about the state asking adults for information concerning services purely for them?
So under the various examples we've discussed here, informing the LA that you wish to home educate your child is a one off (or perhaps annual) piece of administrative duty. And furthermore, there is a protection of minors concern and duty of care on the state. Taking these together, I don't see it as an unnecessary burden, either in practical terms or theoretically.
Under the checkpoints to major cities example, this would represent an ongoing burden, with no direct protection of minors issue, and where I can't see a suitably strong causal link between the total administrative birden placed on free adults and any possible gain to society to justify that. I'd also put ID cards in this category.
On a census - I don't have a problem with a ten year census. I think there could even be a case for a 5 yearly one to address the targeting of service in very fluid areas of population. I would be opposed to an annual one and even more so to a monthly one because the marginal gain is insufficient when set against the marginal cost.
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