Scotland’s national home education charity Schoolhouse has welcomed news that draconian measures threatening the future of home education in England which had been tabled in the Children Schools and Families Bill will not now pass into legislation.
Commenting on the news that Ed Balls’s parent licensing plans have been stymied, Schoolhouse convener Sheila Struthers said: “This is a good day for educational freedom and we congratulate our sister organsation AHEd, opposition MPs and the many home educating families who have campaigned relentlessly over the past 18 months for these unjustified and vindictive proposals to be dropped in their entirety.”
Schoolhouse has previously reported an upsurge in enquiries from English home educators considering a move north of the border in anticipation of the legislation being passed. Since the Scottish Government issued statutory guidance in 2008 based on research evidence , Scotland has looked like an attractive proposition for freethinking home educating families.
Scottish education expert, Professor James Conroy from the University of Glasgow, has already spoken out strongly against the English proposals. In a submission to the parliamentary select committee which heavily criticised all aspects of the discredited Badman home education inquiry, he said: “In my 30 odd years of professional life in education I have rarely encountered a process, the entirety of which was so slap dash, panic driven, and nakedly and naively populist.”
Excellent news, congratulations to all who fought for our freedom. This would’ve affected all families, home educators were just the first target.