1. Education can take place anywhere and everywhere, in a
school building or outside it.
2. Education is compulsory, schooling is not.
3. State schooling, Independent schooling and Home schooling
are the three main and international examples of education.
4. The European Convention and UN Charter on Universal Human
Rights state that education is a human right.
5. The European Convention and UN Charter on Universal Human
Rights protect the right of parents to choose the type of
education their children will have, which includes home schooling.
6. The Swedish Government's plan to effectively ban home
schooling on religious and philosophical grounds is illegal and a
violation of these fundmantal human rights.
7. Most homeschoolers choose home education not on religious or
philosophical grounds but because of the appalling social
conditions - and in some cases, poor academic performance - of
Swedish schools whose negative psychological influence they
wish to protect their children from.
8. Some home school because they wish to instruct in the
language of the parents which may not be Swedish so as to
prepare their children for higher education abroad in that
language.
9. Some home school because they believe in unschooling, at
least during the Primary School years.
10. Home schoolers are a cross-section of Swedish society from
every political, religious, secular and philosophical background.
11. Home schoolers come from all professions and include
professional educators.
12. Home schoolers come from all income groups.
13. Home schoolers believe in integrating with society, not in
forming parallel societies.
14. Home schoolers believe that parents and guardians have the
primary rôle in educating and raising their children, not the state.
15. Home schoolers are not "fundamentalists", in the negative
and politically loaded sense of the term applied to religious
terrorists but believe in fundamental individual human rights.
16. Home schoolers believe in pluralism in democracy, not in
totalitarian uniformitarianism.
17. There is considerable ignorance of, and prejudice against,
home schooling generally in Sweden because of a lack of
accurate government and media information about it.
18. The current Swedish government seems to want to emulate
Germany which has banned homeschooling on the grounds of an
old 1938 Nazi law which has never been reformed in that
country.
19. Home schooling is a growing international trend: where it is
unfettered, it is growing at the rate of abour 8% per year.
20. Home schooling rights should mirror those enjoyed by home
schoolers in the USA and UK where there is currently the most
freedom.
21. More would home school in Sweden were it not for the
impossible restrictions under the current law - about 45,000
instead of the current 100 (extrapolating from the US model).
22. Sweden is in danger of sliding into totalitarianism if home
schooling is banned.
23. If home schooling is banned, Sweden will have political
refugees leaving it, as in Germany, and become a political pariah.
24. Sweden will become a Class B Democracy if it bans home
schooling (a democracy with totalitarian elements), and cease
being a liberal democracy.
25. Home schooling should be made an easy option by law with
minimum state interference and quality contact.
26. The Ministry of Education, and Education Minister Jan
Björklund has turned down offers to consult with professional
home schooling representatives because he "doesn't have time".
27. Jan Björklund has admitted that Swedish schools have the
highest levels of truancy, destruction and most bad language in
all the 30 OECD (organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development) countries.
28. The current government policy towards homeschoolers is
reminiscent of colonialism and imperialism.
29. The home schooling issue is more than about just home
schooling but about the way the government treats individuals
and abuses individual rights.
30. Home schoolers will not lie down and surrender their rights
but mean to fight this battle vigorously both at home and in the
international media.
