Please support us in petitioning the Prime Minister of Great Britain
> to
> reject the recommendations of the Report to the Secretary of State on
> the Review of Elective Home Education in England by Graham Badman.This
> report is a totally disproportionate response to a 'perceived' problem
> full of unsubstantiated allegations that home educated children are
> more at risk of abuse than those at school. This simply is not true,
> as
> the report itself makes clear. Enacting the recommendations in this
> report would establish the state as “parent of first resort”, even
> though current legislation makes parents responsible for providing a
> suitable education for their children.
>
> The report proposes to introduce monitoring and registration of home
> educators. Local officials would be given automatic access to private
> homes to interview children without their parents or any other trusted
> adult present. This is outrageous and a serious challenge to civil
> liberties. Registration may be refused or revoked on safeguarding
> grounds, though so far it is unclear what these grounds may be and
> Badman in his report stated that such grounds could be “any other
> concerns” that the local official had. Under such conditions,
> “registration” could really mean “permission” especially when home
> educators come up against inspectors who are anti-home education.
>
> The proposals also introduce the need for the parent to submit an
> approved 12 month plan and for their child to “exhibit” at the end of
> the year that their plan has been successfully implemented. This will
> put an end to autonomous education/unschooling, as any such child-led
> philosophy would be decimated by having to implement such a structured
> scheme. This would also seriously curtail the flexibility that many
> structured home educators enjoy.
>
> Across many countries there seems to be an attempt to undermine home
> education and to make sure that all children receive the state’s
> approved version of education, Sweden is moving to ban home education
> and it is already against the law in Germany.
>
> Please help us stop this happening in England. This is becoming a
> global problem for home educators/homeschoolers. Let us unite and say
> with one big voice, “enough is enough!"
> Petition:
> We
> the undersigned call upon the Prime Minister of Great Britain to
> reject
> the recommendations of the Report to the Secretary of State on the
> Review of Elective Home Education in England by Graham Badman.