Home Education Regulation

From the perspective of alternative education philosophies, compulsory schooling seems ridiculous. Firstly there are the human and children's rights issues. The lack of care for the dignity of the person, the physical violence, the potential abuse because of power structures and so on. A perspective on compulsory schooling which performs like this is connected to schools as a social function in ways that emerge from within the failing aspects of the centre of the schooling enterprise. They are its shadow side but also perhaps its source of most hope. Secondly there is the law. In many countries schooling is not compulsory in any way. The UK and America are two countries where this reality has taken on a power and a life that begins - because of the growing numbers of home educators - to challenge the possibility of an assumption that education is schooling and to challenge also the philosophy that goes with it. Education alone is fairly compulsory these days. The mechanism by which that truth bears itself out varies and can vary. In countries where this “truth” is not the case and it is schooling that is indeed compulsory, interesting factors contribute to that situation: in Germany the compulsory nature of schooling was enshrined in law by Adolf Hitler and has not been changed since. In Sweden where home education becomes close to impossible, complaints of the rise of the political far right temporally tally with complaints from parents who find their choice about educating their children diminishes to the point where the state is the educator of the child. And so we are back to human rights, but this time of parents. This chapter will examine the very idea of compulsory schooling from the point of view of an alternative world of education, where different rules apply. This will highlight the role of educational philosophy from and in an alternative education perspective.

This paper presents a unique summary of Australian research on home education, and an evaluation of current regulation in an Australian context. It begins with the recognition that home education is a legal alternative to school education in Australia. However it argues that legal definitions of home education do not properly reflect the practice of home education. This is illustrated by an examination of different educational approaches taken by home educators and research on the socialisation of home educated children in Australia. Research on who chooses home education, why people choose home education and the educational outcomes for home educated children is also discussed. Home educating families represent all family types, are found in rural, suburban and city locations, and choose home education for a variety ofreasons. Research indicates that Australian home educated children have positive educational and social experiences and outcomes. The question of whether and ifso the...

This is the Decision of the then European Commission on Human Rights (now European Court of Human Rights) regarding the complaint made by Renata Leuffen against Germany to refuse to allow her to educate her son Danny at home from 1992. The Commission rejected her application. Leuffen plans to reopen her case in the foreseeable future. She advocates the legality of the right to home school globally. Dr Raymond Moore, a leading Child Development Specialist from the US who advised the US Government, supported her case, as did hundreds of home schooling parents.

This paper presents a unique summary of Australian research on home education, and an evaluation of current regulation in an Australian context. It begins with the recognition that home education is a legal alternative to school education in Australia. However argues that legal definitions of home education do not properly reflect the practice of home education. This is illustrated by an examination of different educational approaches taken by home educators and research on the socialisation of home educated children in Australia. Research on who chooses home education, why people choose home education and the educational outcomes for home educated children is also discussed. Home educating families represent all family types, are found in rural, suburban and city locations, and choose home education for a variety of reasons. Research indicates that Australian home educated children have positive educational and social experiences and outcomes. The question of whether, and if so the extent to which, home education should be regulated by the state is examined. The authors argue that whilst regulation is acceptable to protect a child’s right to education, a more consistent regulatory framework is needed across Australia. It is argued that such a framework should facilitate and encourage children who are being home educated and should be flexible enough to accommodate the variety of educational approaches taken to home education.

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The Berlin conference was international statement of solidarity and advocacy for the families coming from the countries in which the freedom  of choice of education is brutally violated.

Berlińska konferencja była międzynarodowym gestem solidarności i wyrazem poparcia dla rodzin pochodzących z krajów, w których w sposób niezwykle brutalny łamane jest prawo rodziców do wyboru edukacji ich dzieci.

In Quebec (Canada), a new normative framework and the COVID-19 pandemic have precipitated the hiring, by the ministry of education, of at least a hundred new resource persons to monitor home education. According to international writings, these professionals are at the crossroads of normative, political, and educational conflicts. Our literature review reveals that these resource persons might solve such conflicts by adopting some of ten typical intervention strategies: mutual understanding, tolerance of disagreement, search for the child’s interest, creativity, competency development, negligence, abuse of power, protection of their professionality, incontestability, and distrust. A questionnaire was constructed on the basis of this typology, aimed at supporting the study of their interactions with families.

Świat polaryzuje się względem wolności w praktykowaniu edukacji domowej. W czasie, gdy w niektórych krajach rodziny zainteresowane taką właśnie formą kształcenia swoich dzieci bez przeszkód i z dużym powodzeniem ją realizują, w innych krajach dzieci i ich rodzice przeżywają prawdziwe dramaty, rodem z innej - zdawałoby się - epoki.

The world is getting polarized about practicing home education. In some
countries families are interested in this form of schooling and are making the best of it with great success. At the same time in other countries similar families experience extreme difficulties, as seems from another age.

In Quebec (Canada), a new normative framework and the COVID-19 pandemic have precipitated the hiring, by the ministry of education, of at least a hundred new resource persons to monitor home education. According to international writings, these professionals are at the crossroads of normative, political, and educational conflicts. Our literature review reveals that these resource persons might solve such conflicts by adopting some of ten typical intervention strategies: mutual understanding, tolerance of disagreement, search for the child’s interest, creativity, competency development, negligence, abuse of power, protection of their professionality, incontestability, and distrust. A questionnaire was constructed on the basis of this typology, aimed at supporting the study of their interactions with families.

L'éducation à domicile est une option éducative marginale, quoique légale et présente à travers le monde. Au Québec, jusqu'ici, aucune étude approfondie n'avait décrit cette pratique et la population des familles concernées était inconnue. Cet article porte sur les raisons du choix de l'«école à la maison», exprimées par 203 familles québécoises au moyen d'un questionnaire. Cette enquête, réalisée en 2003, visait à documenter les conceptions de l'éducation, les raisons du choix, l'expérience éducative et les caractéristiques sociodémographiques des familles. Les raisons évoquées sont multiples et hétérogènes. Les rationnels décisionnels des parents sont variés et multidimensionnels. Une des particularités de ces résultats est qu'aucune voix religieuse, anti-étatique ou philosophique ne semble dominer le discours des parents-éducateurs québécois. Pour l'ensemble des participants, les principaux facteurs à la base de ce choix sont un désir de poursuivre un projet éducatif familial, une objection aux modes d'organisation du système scolaire, une volonté d'offrir de l'enrichissement et un souci du développement socioaffectif des enfants.