Home education protesters call out state overreach

Protests at Westminster and Holyrood have criticised the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, saying it undermines parents.

Campaigners gathered last month to object to plans for home education registration, which they say places the state between children and their parents.

The Christian Institute has campaigned against the Bill’s overreach from the outset, arguing that the new register would require too much information, and was invasive and impractical for parents and local authorities.

Educational freedom

In England, protestors united under a banner reading “Yes to Children’s Wellbeing. No to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.”

Speakers warned of the Government treating home schooling parents like criminals, collecting their data and requiring mandatory home visits.

The protestors in Scotland stated they wanted “to send a clear message to the Scottish Government regarding the importance of educational freedom and parental responsibility”, as similar proposals are set to be debated in Holyrood.

‘Disproportionate interference’

Last year, top human rights lawyer Aidan O’Neill KC raised “significant questions” over compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights and data protection regulations.

Mr O’Neill, who was commissioned by The Christian Institute to review the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, found “no evidence to suggest that all homeschooled children and their families require to be a particular focus of concern by the State”.

Rather, he argued, “the measure at issue may not constitute a proportionate interference in the fundamental rights of the families and children involved, and hence be Convention incompatible”.

The Bill proposed registers that required parents to state the amount of time each child spends “receiving education from each parent” and obliged them to provide the same information for anyone else who educated their child, such as a Sunday School teacher.

But in the House of Lords earlier this month, Peers backed Government amendments removing the requirements to record such details. The Bill now returns to the House of Commons for further consideration.