Who are we?
Prior to the setting up of the Home Education Network home educating families were
supported through an informal network and a regular newsletter, Sa Bhaile. Some home
educators perceived the need for a more formal and structured group. An added impetus
was the increase in State activities against home educators necessitating a proactive
approach. The Home Education Network evolved as a support and lobby group.
The Network was set up:
To build connections between home educators themselves, between home educators
and the public, and between home educators and those in authority;
To aid and assist the free flow of information between home educating parents in matters
concerning the education of our children;
To support each other when we feel isolated or threatened by others in society, especially
those of us against whom the law is being used;
To act as negotiators with State authorities as the need arises.
The initial aims of the group are:
To support parental choice in deciding the most appropriate form of education for each
child;
To raise awareness of the fact that home education is a viable and legal option;
To help parents utilise available resources to develop educational techniques suitable for
each child's needs;
To provide a means for the interchange of ideas and experiences among home educators
through an annual Conference, regularly held social gatherings, newsletters and
seminars.
Our first Annual Conference was held in Waterford in June this year. Our mandate was
confirmed by the home-educating families who attended, and our support continues to be
sought by families countrywide who contact us every week.
The Education (Welfare) Bill - our objections
Our main objection to the inclusion of home-educating families in this Bill is that home
education should be acknowledged as an integral part of our national education system
and not merely included in a Bill intended to deal with children who have problems with
school attendance. As the "principal natural teachers" of our children we are exercising
our right and duty to educate our children in the home, as enshrined in the Irish
Constitution.
"Minimum Education"
The Education Minister is given the power to prescribe a minimum education for every
child in the State. In the Education (Welfare) Bill as passed by Seanad Eireann this
"prescribed minimum education" is to be provided to each child who is being educated in
a place other than a recognised school. We feel that this is discriminatory. The details of a
prescribed "minimum education" are to be worked out by the Minister with or without
consultation after the Bill has been enacted. We feel that this is undemocratic.
The term "minimum education" is a quantitative term. "Minimum" applies to substances
that "admit of division into like parts" (Aristotle). Education is an entirely different kind of
"substance". Essentially, we are dealing with a "process", not a "product". This process is
largely open-ended, so, just as there is no such thing as "minimum education" so there is
no "maximum". Not only is the Bill's insistence on educational conformity undemocratic, it
fails to encourage diversity, which is healthy in a pluralist society.
Assessment
In order to be accepted for registration as a home educator, according to provisions in the
Bill, parents must agree in advance that an education assessor may enter their home to
conduct assessment. We feel that "one choice is no choice". A ruling in the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (Brunelle & others vs. Lynn Public Schools,
November-December 1998) emphasized that homeschooling should not be evaluated in
the same way that institutional schooling is evaluated. The Court noted that only one State
in the entire US requires homeschoolers to submit to home visits by school officials,
stating that: "While the State can insist that the child's education be moved along in a way
which can be objectively measured, it cannot apply institutional standards to this
non-institutionalized setting. Furthermore, a requirement of home visits may call into play
issues of family privacy in seeking to keep the home free from unwarranted intrusion". The
Court went on to say that "both the United States Supreme Court and this Court have
emphasized, in connection with the protected right of parents to raise their children, that
'government may not intrude unnecessarily on familial privacy'". Parents may be
concerned not to have their child's privacy invaded out of respect for the child's autonomy
and any hint of testing or examination by strangers with a different agenda can be
experienced as undermining.
The Education (Welfare) Bill gives a directive to the assessor to assess the teaching
method. In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled that this is not permitted under the Constitution.
The Bill directs that a child's "physical, intellectual, social and emotional" education must
be assessed. We doubt if any one person can be adequately trained in all these fields.
We can find no mandate for the assessment of a child's "emotional" education in the
Constitution. Children in schools are not subjected to such assessment, so applying it
only to home-educated children is obviously discriminatory.
Conscience and Lawful Preference
Article 42.3.1 of the Constitution states:
"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 to any particular type of school
designated by the State." Would parents who had been refused registration as home
educators be forced to send their children to State schools in contravention of their
conscience and lawful preference? The Bill implies that the ultimate responsibility for the
children of parents convicted of school attendance offenses lies with the Health Boards.
Would these children be taken into the care of the Health Board?
The right to dignity
The names of children involved in cases of sexual abuse are withheld from the public in
order to protect the child. But children at the centre of home-education cases are named.
They and their families are exposed to intense media attention. The Preamble to the
Constitution describes the reasons why the Constitution was adopted: "so that the dignity
and freedom of the individual is assured". In a recent home-education case, the Judge
described the education that the family was providing as "inept", "wrong-headed", and
"incompetent". These remarks constituted a personal attack on the integrity and worth of
the family, and as such were an offense against the "right to dignity" described in the
Preamble to the Constitution. The Judge had measured the family against an invisible
"yardstick", a Platonic ideal that exists in his mind, comparing them to everyone else. His
dismissal of the family's sincere efforts to home-educate portrays the family as socially
incompetent. Such public humiliation violates both the letter and the spirit of the
Constitution. A "social yardstick" that would be acceptable to everyone would be
impossible to formulate. Provisions in the Education (Welfare) Bill propose definition of
such a "yardstick", against which parents could be measured in degrees of deviation from
the norm. Until this definition has been finalised, the recent Supreme Court decision in the
Christine Best case means that District Judges must decide what a "suitable" or
"minimum education" means, even though they may not have a degree in education. But
parents who do not hold such degrees are considered unlikely to be competent to provide
even a "minimum" elementary education for their child.
A Supportive Approach
We acknowledge the duty of the State to require assurances that an education is being
provided, and wish to confirm the right of every child to an education. But we are of the
opinion that a more appropriate approach to home education than including it in a Bill
primarily designed to deal with truancy, would be an Amendment to the Education Act
1998 setting up a Home Education Advisory Council, made up of home educators and
educationalists versed in the educational methodology and philosophy of home
education. A family would be registered by means of written notification of their intent to
home educate. Education Advisors working with parents would need to be completely
familiar with the process of home learning. Assessment could take place outside the
home, in the Education Advisor's office, where the parents could also obtain materials and
curriculum development advice. This assessment should be carried out in a manner that
has been determined in consultation with home educators, is suitable to the situation,
and is minimally intrusive. Any prescribed curriculum must take into account the
provisions of Article 29 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. An
assessment of the child's physical development could be made by annual (or bi-annual)
visits to a health practicioner of the family's choice. We feel that this approach would
vindicate the parents' right to home educate, protect the right of the child to an education,
and provide a means for the State to ensure that the child has an opportunity to make
known any problems at home.
The crux of the issue is not a disagreement in regard to education, or the manner in which
parents may discharge their responsibility to see that their children receive an education. It
is a civil liberties issue, where a government established by and for the people is now
trying to tell the same people responsible for its creation and continued existence what
they may do.
Barbara Boland
Michael Duggan
Joseph P. Dunne
Debra E. James
Carol Jordan
Andrew T. Lloyd
for the
HOME EDUCATION NETWORK