Reply: Surveilling Home Education

https://www.ft.com/content/da6c87a0-1f22-11e9-b126-46fc3ad87c65

Find me public figures who clearly state that the current laws (and not the resources or implementation of them) protecting children from abuse are inadequate; show me the government's sufficient delineation of what a "proper education" is across a myriad of approaches, contexts and cultures; demonstrate how families' rights (i.e. protected minority viewpoints) will be safe from individual inspectors/councils with bias and/or the pressure to never let a single concerning case fall through the gaps leaving every home-schooling parent as a natural suspect (no matter whether the law calls for presumption of innocence); show me the stats that say that home educated children are more at risk than schooled children (reality is the opposite); convince me that a strained bureaucracy has more of a right and more proof of competency to direct the particulars of a child who has been already cared for 24/7 (for at least 4 years by school age) by parent(s); explain to me how a country that counts births, deaths, migrations and school pupils doesn't know how many children are home educated; show me the consultations that have been done with caring home educating parents from a range of backgrounds alongside the educational professionals; demonstrate the safeguarding effectiveness of further straining social workers to cover thousands of families where there is no evidence or concern for the children’s welfare; explain how the examples of state overreaching across Europe and the world in every generation (from US borders to Norwegian free thinkers) will be avoided here; explain to me why the sanctity of my home will not be protected by default (as some call for even where there is no immediate concern) when police must still get permission to raid the home of a suspected criminal...

Give me answers to these and a thousand other concerns and I will consider handing over a little more of my freedom to a wise government (even at the risk that it doesn't remain as such). For now such a scenario is not even on the horizon.

I do clearly think something more needs to be done to protect vulnerable children from isolated abusive guardians. But the way in which the government has demonstrated brazen ignorance in swallowing spiders (i.e. to catch flies - not that protecting children from harm is a small concern) - naive to the risks of giving too much authority to councils over parents before any proof of harm has been established - demands answers and greater thought well before legislation.

Let's get on to that as fast as we can and not harm more children and families by totally shifting to a worldview that places more trust in the state over the family or the individual. History teaches me to be nothing other than sceptical, even still when through tears I read of another example of helpless children being abused by the very ones who were put there to love and care for them.

Many like me, of course, share the same concerns for vulnerable children. It is the politicians that fail to listen to our warnings: that they could inadvertently create not just more vulnerable children (erroneously intervening) but vulnerable families (the necessary conclusion of the foundation of the current approach).