Why the British government sometimes views home education with suspicion

One of the problems for home education in this country is that it often presents not just as another educational setting, but rather as a weird cult. It is a particular concern of most European governments at the moment to see that society becomes more cohesive and does not start splitting into self-contained and divisive sections; each with different core values and exclusive beliefs. One can quite see the point, the development of parallel societies within a country seldom ends well! It is from this perspective that home education is sometimes seen as likely to lead to a group of people who live by a code which varies greatly from that which the rest of a country shares and abides by. This is why Germany does not allow home education.

In Britain, there is a strong sense among the more prominent home educators that their chosen educational technique is somehow superior to the one used by almost everybody else. Before going any further, we should bear in mind that home education is essentially neither more nor less than just another way of educating children. Like all educational settings, there are advantages and disadvantages. Single-sex schools for girls, to give one example, are very good educationally for girls, but can leave them a little socially immature. What comprehensive schools lack educationally, on the other hand, they make up for in preparing children for life in a diverse society. All those involved with British education recognises such differences and are prepared to discuss them rationally.

Home educators tend to be different. They typically refuse to believe that there can be any disadvantage to the educational setting which they have chosen for their children. For them, it seems all too often to be a wonderful  ideal; one which cannot be bettered. There is often a messianic air about home education in Britain, with anybody asking too many questions about it being regarded as an enemy; just as with many cults. Here is good example, from a few years ago;

http://ahed.pbworks.com/w/page/1552653/About%20AHEd

Just look at the mad things which are being said here! ‘Home educators have unique and privileged access to fundamental truths about the human condition’, ‘Home educators can reveal these truths to the rest of society’, ‘This is our precious gift’. Just replace the expression ‘home educators’ in those quotations with ‘scientologists’ or ‘Muslims’ and you will see that this is the language not of education, but religion. There is a distinctly religious feel to the thing.

Several things strike one about  peculiar ideas like this;  that home education is some sort of Utopian lifestyle which will one day change society. The first is that this theme is a very powerful one among the self-appointed leaders of home education in this country. The second is the sheer absurdity of talking about an educational setting in this exalted way! Imagine if I were to say that, ‘Those of us who send our children to comprehensive schools have unique and privileged access to fundamental truths about the human condition’. It would sound as though I had taken leave of my senses!

The final, and most important point, is this. It is in nobody’s interest to see society fragmenting into individual strands, whose members have little use for the mainstream way of life. This can be dangerous if those who belong to such groups follow some particular religion; Islam or fundamentalist Christianity. It is also unlikely to be healthy for society if political groups start to split off from the rest of us and promote values greatly at odds with those held by everybody else. There is a vague fear among some people, both in central and local government, that something of the sort is happening among home educators; that they might be indoctrinating their children with strange notions, which will make it difficult for them to fit into the ordinary scheme of things when they grow up. This is all of a piece with the worries about Muslim independent schools which are a  big concern at the moment. Perhaps if home educators stopped behaving as though they were somehow special and possessed of insights which elude parents who send their children to school, it would go some way towards allaying such fears.

Enter a stalking horse…

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'.