Education & Freedom of Choice

Let us discuss some real facts about home education and freedom of choice in UK. Few parents who home educate do so to restrict their children's choices. Well it may be that we in the UK home educate in a different way or that home education is different in character in the UK to that practiced elsewhere, but I feel strongly that home education is about choices.

Moreover, it would be better to say that children in school have choice whereas home educated children do not seem perverse. No harm in saying that School is all about restricting choice.

Discussing further to the restrictions inherent in school attendance including truancy punishments there are further restrictions concerning what should be studied, how it should be studied and that in the UK parents are encouraged to sign "Home School Agreements" where the parent promises to restrict their child's choices dramatically in terms of bed times, TV viewing, meals, dress, personal hygiene, hair styles, reading materials and many other issues, all in their child's best interests.

If we see it in a positive way we can say that a child will meet with people from a diverse background in school is also incorrect. Schools (at least in the UK) have catchment areas. All these tend to be based upon social backgrounds. And all Schools, therefore have fairly homogenous student populations.

This is very sad as to abuse in school, in the UK, 2 children a week commit suicide as a result of school stress. Infact this figure rises year on year, this year is a record year. While we're on the subject of the 90 thousand or so children home educated in the UK not one suicide has been recorded - ever.

So in the response to school phobia by the authorities in the UK is to threaten children (yes the children) with their parents imprisonment and themselves with care orders. This is IMO abusive. Despite this the rates of school phobia are still rising dramatically. Children simply cannot be forced into school any more and despite the best efforts by educational psychologists (may they rot in hell) to blame parents its becoming clear to everyone that this problem is one of school stress. Even the DfES guidelines to LEA's states that parents should be told about their right to home educate, however from evidence I have received many LEA's consistently refuse to do this and one LEA recently admitted in its internal policy guidance notes to EWO's to actively hide this right from Traveler families.

Well what sort of measure one would apply to ensure that children meet with a wide range of people and come into contact with a wide rang of positively presented alternative lifestyles and ideologies - that would also be used to measure school performance.

As per my research, in the European Union parents have the right in law to bring up their children in any philosophical framework they believe in.