HEN Ireland. Last update 5th April 2007
Home  -  About us  -  Contact us  -  Learn about HE
Home Education in Ireland
HEN Ireland
The Legal Issues

Article 42 of the Constitution sets out the relationships between the family, parents, children
and the State with respect to education. It says:

    1.        "The State acknowledges that the primary and natural educator of the child is the
    Family and guarantees to respect the inalienable right and duty of parents to provide,
    according to their means, for the religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social
    education of their children".

    2.        "Parents shall be free to provide this education in their homes or in private
    schools or in schools recognised or established by the State".

    3.1        "The State shall not oblige parents in violation of their conscience and lawful
    preference to send their children to schools established by the State, or in any particular
    type of school designated by the State".

    3.2        "The State shall, however, as guardian of the common good, require in view of
    actual conditions that the children receive a certain minimum education, moral,
    intellectual and social".

    4.        "The State shall provide for free primary education and shall endeavour to
    supplement and give reasonable aid to private and corporate educational initiative, and,
    when the public good requires it, provide educational facilities or institutions with due
    regard, however, for the rights of parents, especially in the matter of religious and moral
    formation".

The School Attendance Act 1926 covers the necessary requirements to ensure that all children
between the ages of 6 and 16 have access to education.  It has been amended several times
since 1926 - most recently to raise the school leaving age to 16 - but the legal requirements
and obligations are still more or less unchanged.  See also the section on the Education
(Welfare) Act 2000 below.
The 1926 Act consists of 27 Sections.  The following is a synopsis of the relevant clauses (the
section numbers precede the relevant text, text in quotes indicates quotation from the Act).   
Please note that the following provisions have now been replaced by the Education Welfare Act
(2000), however we have included it from an historical point of view.

    4.1       "The parent of every child to whom this Act applies shall, unless there is a
    reasonable excuse for not so doing, cause the child to attend... school..."
    4.2        "Any of the following shall be a reasonable excuse for failure to comply with this
    section..." 4.2.b "that the child is receiving suitable elementary education is some
    manner other than by attending a national or other suitable school" [4.2.c allows parents
    to object to available schools on religious grounds].
    6.2       requires parents to notify both relevant school attendance authorities if the child
    moves home from one district to another (in rural Ireland this would be the Gardai).
    15.1     The principal of the school is obliged to report any absent children to the school
    attendance authorities.
    15.3     The principal is obliged to give parents a certificate of attendance when the child
    is withdrawn from school.
    16.        Parent must within three days, communicate in writing to the principal the reason
    why a child is not attending school.
    17.1      "Whenever a parent fails so cause his child to attend school ... and there is no
    reasonable excuse ... the enforcing authority shall serve on such a parent a warning in
    prescribed form" 17.1.a "requiring him within one week to cause the child to attend
    school or give to the enforcing authority a reasonable excuse for not so doing" 17.1.b
    "informing him that in the event of his failing to comply with the warning, proceedings will
    be instituted against him under this Act in the District Court."


The Education (Welfare) Act 2000  came into law in the summer of 2000 and repealed the
School Attendance Acts 1926 to 1967 with effect from 5 July 2002.
It provides a major reformulation of the law in regard to all matters connected with school
attendance and children’s welfare in education.

School Attendance Officers have become Education Welfare Officers and the Gardai are no
longer involved with school attendance matters.
A National Educational Welfare Board (NEWB) has now been established on a statutory basis.
The Registration and Assessment system for children educated in places other than
recognised schools is now in place. Under the Act parents or guardians of home educated
children are obliged to provide details of the educational provision to their child(ren) to the
NEWB. Under the Constitution children have the right to receive a “certain minimum education”.
If the application is approved then their child(ren) will be included in the register. Registration is
not an automatic process and  may possibly be refused. An appeal process has been included
in the Act for such an event.

Read the Section 14 of the Education (Welfare) Act, 2000 concerning children educated at home.

A set of guidelines has been drawn up by the Schools Inspectorate for the implementation of
the Act (Guidelines on the Assessment of Education in Places Other Than Recognised
Schools).








The E(W)A 2000, the Guidelines and application forms are also available from the Government
Publications Office, Molesworth St, Dublin 2, Tel 01-6710309 and the Depatment of Education
and Science, www.education.ie
Cluck Cluck