Fresh from making LGBT lessons mandatory for every school in the country, the UK government is set to force parents who homeschool their children to sign a register it says will protect against “dangerous influences”.
Parents who homeschool their children would be made to sign a compulsory register or else face possible prosecution, under Department for Education (DfE) plans designed supposedly to counter fears of “missing” children dropping off the state’s radar.
Education Secretary Damian Hinds said: “The term ‘home education’ has now acquired a much broader meaning than it used to. It is now a catch-all phrase, used to refer to all children not in a registered school.
“So while this does include those actually getting a really good education at home, it also includes children who are not getting an education at all, or being educated in illegal schools where they are vulnerable to dangerous influences – the truth is, we just don’t know.”
Schools watchdog head Amanda Spielman commented that “Ofsted has long had concerns about the increasing numbers of school-age children not attending a registered school, many of whom may not be receiving a high-quality education or being kept safe.”
She recently spoke out to denounce protests against a curriculum which Muslim parents in Birmingham complained was “promoting homosexuality”, claiming that lessons introducing young children to transexual and LGBT lifestyles were necessary to prepare pupils for life in a “diverse, modern, progressive country”.
In a speech last year, the Ofsted chief appeared to equate Muslim fundamentalism with everyday Christian beliefs as she namechecked mainstream campaign group, the Christian Institute, while demanding teachers push a “muscular liberalism” which “holds no truck” for religious ideologies seeking to “narrow young people’s horizons”
Parents who homeschool their children have responded with concern to the proposals, with Christian Education Europe noting that local authorities “already have the authority to request proof that parents are providing a full-time, suitable education, and to issue a school attendance order if they are not satisfied”.
Describing the proposed system as “an unnecessary intrusion into the everyday lives of British families and an unsettling attempt to wrest away from parents their fundamental human right of choosing their children’s education”, the group slammed the government’s “attempts to remove the freedom of choice within homes”.
“The family unit, parental rights, and the protection of children are under threat as never before, and it is up to each person to preserve the freedom of family life in the UK,” added Christian Education Europe, in a statement.
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