HomeSchooler.org.uk

"We hope that this will be a useful resource to forward to MPs, friends,
family
and others as part of helping them to understand something of what home
education is about.

We also hope that this short introduction to home education will encourage
families to look further into it as an option for their children.

Other videos in the series will include a short film specifically about the
Badman Report, and also an exclusive interview with Dr Alan Thomas.

Watch this space for further announcements.

Heartfelt thanks to all the home educated young people who spoke so
eloquently
about their home education, and for Andy and the organisers at HESFES for
allowing EO to film on location.

Thanks also to Lord Lucas who provided a room in Westminster for further
filming. We hope to include as many of their interviews as possible in a
separate VoxBox video."

..."This article reviews the current law, highlights the practical issues requiring clarification and identifies the connections with other policy developments such as Every Child Matters and the increasing regulation of the independent education sector."...

From Andrew Adonis
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Schools

Lord Judd
House of Lords
London
SW1A OPW

13 October 2006

Since Committee stage I have given a great deal of consideration to your amendment to introduce a simple statutory 'right to education' at the outset of the Education and Inspections Bill.

Let me say that I was strongly attracted to this idea in principle. I understand the potential declaratory value of such a statement; and since there is nothing more central to the society we wish to create than excellent education for every young person, it seemed to me a right and valuable thing to do. However, my officials and lawyers have persuaded Alan Johnson and myself that the declaratory value would be outweighed by the legal uncertainty that such an apparently simple change would involve, and that it might perversely have the effect of jeopardising or qualifying the well-established rights to education which are now very well embedded in case law. They are also concerned at the potential effect such an amendment might have in extending rights to minority forms of schooling which do not conform to the legal framework required to safeguard the national curriculum, fair access and community.

Let me set out the arguments - and case law - in the way that it has been presented to me. As I have already mentioned, the right to education is guaranteed by Article 2 of the First Protocol to the ECHR and, for children, by Article 28 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The right to education provided by the ECHR is already part of national law by virtue of the Human Rights Act 1998, which sets out in detail the procedure for making a claim that a right has been infringed and also sets out the remedies available for a breach. To legislate along the same lines in education legislation would undermine the regime set out in the Human Rights Act 1998, as it would not be clear which should prevail.

"This is intended as a post inviting discussion; it is not written with the intention that it is a definitive legal opinion and it should not be taken or relied upon by anyone in that way."

Original Post can be read here, with any discussion.

"I hope that this is not too large a post and also that it answers the