How autonomous home education was outlawed in this country over thirty years ago

One of the things which never ceases to amaze me is the enthusiasm shown by autonomous home educators in this country for the case of precedent set by Harrison and Harrison V Stevenson in the early 1980s. These idiots talk about this case as though it established their  right to educate their children autonomously, whereas in fact it had the effect of making the practice unlawful. To see why this should have been, we need to look at what was said during the judgement. It will be recalled that a woman called Iris Harrison was trying to assert her right not to teach her own children and the case hinged around the question of what might constitute a 'suitable education'. Children in this country over the age of five, must of course be provided with a suitable, efficient and full-time education, either at school or otherwise.

The judge at Worcester said, apropos of what might be meant by a 'suitable' education:

In our judgement 'education' demands at least an element of supervision; merely to allow a child to follow its own devices in the hope that it will acquire knowledge by imitation, experiment or experience in its own way and in its own good time is neither systematic nor instructive.

The judge went on to say that such a course, 'would not be education'. He then ruled specifically that a child not receiving systematic instruction in mathematics and English, if it were capable of learning them, could not be said to be receiving a 'suitable education'.

And there you have the matter in a nutshell. According to this key piece of precedent, any home educating parent who is not actually teaching or instructing his or her child in mathematics, is not providing a suitable education in the legal sense. Any parent leaving her child to acquire knowledge in her own way and in her own time is not causing that child to receive  a suitable education either.

The next time any home educators feel like quoting Harrison and Harrison V Stevenson, I do hope that they will realise that autonomous education was actually condemned by the judge in the case and that  home educating  parents who don't teach their children mathematics and English systematically, were told in no uncertain terms that they are breaking the law by failing to provide their children with a 'suitable' education.