HomeSchooler.org.uk

http://ahed.pbworks.com/PressReleaseBetterRegulationExecutiveJuly2009

AHEd have issued the following Press Release regarding their appeal to the
Better Regulation Executive to stop the Consultation on Registration and
Monitoring Proposals for Home Education:

PRESS RELEASE

MEDIA INFORMATION FROM ACTION FOR HOME EDUCATION: For
immediate release, Friday 17th July 2009

For further information contact enquires@ahed.org.uk

AHEd Calls In The BRE and Slams Yet Another Unnecessary Consultation!

Action for Home Education (AHEd)1 has today appealed to the Better
Regulation Executive2 to halt the public consultation "Home Education -
Registration and Monitoring Proposals" for England3 saying it is an
unnecessary and disproportionate public consultation. They say it is being
carried out by a government who are determined to ask the same questions
repeatedly until they get the answers they want ,while parents and children
are worn down by the slow torture of multiple consultations threatening to
impact their lives dramatically.

This consultation, hot on the heels of the much criticised Review of Home
Education conducted by Graham Badman and reported4 on June 11th
2009, follows years in which families have been targeted by almost
continuous, expensive public consultations out of all proportion to any
perceived problems, and who now face yet another consultation going over
the same old ground!

"We know that the government and some authorities find it difficult to
understand freedom in education; that is bad enough," said Barbara Stark, a
home educating parent and current chair of AHEd, "but when they consult
on proposals that would offend against both our existing law and our basic
human rights at the very least, you really begin to question the level of
competence to understand anything except a politically driven agenda aimed
at destroying independence in order to gain control over every bit of learning
in this country, including that which occurs in private family homes."

AHEd members have put together a compelling argument asking the
Executive to call the Department for Children, Schools and Families to task
and put an end to the consultation2. They insist it has arisen from a Review
which produced no evidence to show that it is either necessary or desirable
or that it would attain the stated aims.

In addition the Department has failed to produce the necessary regulatory
Impact Assessment, says AHEd, which would reveal the enormous waste of
public funds that have already been incurred in conducting both the review
and the consultation and that would be incurred were the proposals in the
review to go ahead. Perhaps they daren't think about it?

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

(1) http://ahed.pbworks.com/

(2)
http://ahed.pbworks.com/BetterRegulationExecutiveandBadmanProposals

(3)
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/consultations/index.cfm?action=consultationDetails&
consultationId=1643&external=no

(4)
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/ete/independentreviewofhomeedu
cation/irhomeeducation/

(posted here by saralexis to assist AHED with publicising this)