I am quite interested to know what game Barry Sheerman MP, former Chair of the Children, Schools and Families Committee, is playing. Late on the night of October 16th this year, he tweeted that;
Home education is the next scandal which will eventually come to public
attention. It is being used in ways that deeply concern @Ofstednews
This gives one the impression that he is simply reporting something about which he knows. Ofsted are concerned about some aspect of home education and it will be coming to the attention of the public. Then, three weeks later, he is asking the Secretary of Sate for Education questions such as:
Barry Sheerman: To ask the Secretary of State for Education
what estimate he has made of the number of (a) girls and (b) boys
registered as being home-schooled who are not receiving an
adequate education.
Barry Sheerman: To ask the Secretary of State
for Education what steps he is taking to
ensure that girls and boys who are home-schooled
receive an equal education.
Rather than just reporting this new scandal, Barry Sheerman now appears to be paving the way for it, by hinting that some home educators are providing an inadequate education for girls. The clue is plain; home education is being used as an excuse for sexism by some ethnic minority and Barry Sheerman is the boy to expose this racket!
Probably, the community which is being talked about here is that of the Gypsies/Travellers/Roma. There are many of them and it is no particular secret that a lot of their girls leave school at 11 and don’t progress to secondary education. Often, these girls are officially being home educated; a polite fiction which fools nobody, but satisfies both the families and the local authority. Here is the problem though and what some would regard as a danger for other home educators. If you wish to crack down on the spurious use of home education in this way, then you must either introduce a law aimed specifically at Gypsies, limiting their ability to choose home education for their children, or you must change the law for everybody. Historically, a good deal of bad publicity has attended the practice of passing laws designed to target particular ethnic groups such as Gypsies, Jews or blacks; I think South Africa and the Third Reich know who we're talking about here! This means that the first option is a non-starter. Which in turn, of course, means that any action taken to tackle this supposed ‘scandal’ will inevitably affect every home educating family in the country.
There is an outside chance that this business about boys and girls receiving an equal education is aimed at Muslims, but I wouldn't have thought that there are large enough numbers of such families to make up any sort of 'scandal'.
We're close to hitting the nail on the head here; a perceived problem among a tiny minority is too difficult to deal with in a politically correct manner. No politician has the guts to say what they believe, whether they're talking about Gypsy/Roma/Traveller communities, sub-continent ethnic groups and forced marriage etc.
ReplyDeleteSo they invent a scheme which looks non-discriminatory, then the people on the ground don't have to actually tackle the awkward minority; as Simon said in the post from 2011 that I quoted under his previous post:
"EWOs will not be wishing to trudge down to the nearest camp and confront a crowd of angry Gypsies."
Likewise politicians and LAs don't dare to upset religious groups. Much nicer to pretend that you're doing something, while actually being too busy occupied by tea and cakes in the homes of conventional home educators who already buy-in to the idea of good education but simply have diverse views on how to achieve it.
It's win-win for bleeding-heart politicians, LAs and social workers as well as the groups they purport to be tackling (GRT, religious/ethnic etc.) - but a big lose for the innocent HEors and their children who are deliberately placed in the cross fire as human shields for everyone else. Thanks a lot Bazzer & co!
It's standard school mentality: one child misbehaves so the entire class is put on detention.
Delete'by tea and cakes in the homes of conventional home educators'
DeleteWhat's a 'conventional' home educator? I don't think I've ever met one. Perhaps you could describe him or her, so I can recognise them?
"What's a 'conventional' home educator?"
DeleteA non-traveller.
Of course, sexism isn't confined to the groups Sheerman is thinking of; he might like to consider sexism among school teachers, e.g., telling girls that they're not good enough to do hard science but should try engineering or soft/wet sciences instead, because they can get on to those degree courses with low grades, as patronising governments like that sort of thing. But strangely, those girls then do better than the boys and go off and get firsts in hard science.
ReplyDeleteBut Sheerman and his chums aren't listening, so any problem with sexist teachers can't be happening and doesn't have to be dealt with.
Oh no! Someone else who talks about 'chums'. Are we all in a Just William book?
DeleteSimon wrote:
ReplyDelete"If you wish to crack down on the spurious use of home education in this way, then you must either introduce a law aimed specifically at Gypsies, limiting their ability to choose home education for their children, or you must change the law for everybody. Because of the bad publicity surrounding laws which in the past targeted, say, Jews or Gypsies specifically, the first option is a non-starter."
Which laws and what bad publicity are you thinking of here, Simon?
'Which laws and what bad publicity are you thinking of here, Simon?'
DeleteWell, there were the Nuremberg laws of 1935 and South Africa's 1952 Pass Laws Act to begin with... As for the bad publicity which attended these laws, you might think about things like the association of such laws with incidents like the Holocaust or the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960. I have to say that it is not hard to find bad publicity attached to both the Nazi Third Reich and also apartheid era South Africa. Laws designed to apply only to this or that ethnic group have never really appealed to most legislators in recent years, possibly because of their automatic association with regimes such as these. Can you honestly imagine an Act of Parliament called something along the lines of; The Prohibition of Elective Home education for Gypsies, Roma and Itinerant Irish Act, 2013?
You know, Simon, I really wish you weren't right about this!
DeleteWhat you're saying is that with the EU entry controls relaxing from January we're basically stuffed because this time we won't run out of Parliamentary time for legislation to be introduced or be seen as a convenient way for one party to annoy the other one.
Do you reckon it's significant that he's Labour and the former Chair of the Select Committee and doesn't seem to like Graham Stuart?
Atb
Anne
'Do you reckon it's significant that he's Labour and the former Chair of the Select Committee and doesn't seem to like Graham Stuart?'
DeleteIt's worth bearing in mind that the Children, Schools and Families select committee under Barry Sheerman, actually endorsed all Graham badman's ideas. true, they tried to disguise this a bit, for example by saying that registration should be voluntary for two years and then if everybody hadn't signed up, it should become compulsory! So yes, I'm sure that he wants to give one in the eye to Graham Stuart.
Did they endorse the ideas, or was it policy all along and they simply chose the right person to make it seem independent?
Delete(That's how I'd do it if I was a politician and it ties in with the state-funded charities raising all the 'right' concerns because they had staff seconded from the Government. Remember all that fuss with the NSPCC?)
Cynically
Anne
The implication of what Simon is saying is that if Hitler had only had the political good sense to expand his mass extermination program to encompass all shopkeepers, businessmen, intellectuals and the Deutsch Wohnwagen Gemeinschaft, he'd have avoided a lot of negative publicity! Is this the only lesson that our politicians have learned from history - that, if you're going to be evil, be indiscriminate with it?
DeleteBut the monstrous regimes in Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa subjected their victims to wicked oppression, brutality, torture and murder simply because of who those people were, and not with any real justification (although it's difficult to conceive of any justification anyway).
Sheerman either has evidence of sexism or he doesn't; if he does, then he should present it for scrutiny. Then we have to consider whether we can deal with the perpetrators without sacrificing the rights of the innocent. Blanket legislation that has no impact on the guilty but harms the innocent is senseless - unless you want to look good (the politicians), expand your authoritarian empire (LA/SS managers) or stay busily employed but safe while avoiding the original problem (social workers and EWOs).
Simon wrote:
Delete"Can you honestly imagine an Act of Parliament called something along the lines of; The Prohibition of Elective Home education for Gypsies, Roma and Itinerant Irish Act, 2013?"
No (not least because they'd never manage it in time for 2013), but there's nothing wrong with "Equality of Education for Itinerant Children Act 2014". That would also provide support through the state school system, where desired.
However, the screams of anguish from thousands of teachers, social workers, EWOs and their managers would put paid to such legislation, which is a pity, because they'd probably find that many of their prejudices about the travelling community are largely unfounded.
their be no new laws brought in over home education in this parliament.If con-Lib lose next election and labour win then maybe it be tried again and their get the same response back from most home educators which is no thx
ReplyDeleteThe political climate is changing and this sort of thing could backfire on Sheerman et al. After more than a decade of meaningless mantras like "Every child matters", "Keeping children safe" and "Protecting our nation from terror", many people are aware that these are simply dishonest distractions from real, bigger problems, with no benefit for anyone except the social control and surveillance nazis and others with vested interests.
ReplyDeleteIf new legislation for HE monitoring is enacted, who will be responsible: LAs, OFSTED, G4S or GCHQ?