School v education.
Homeschool v home education.
Different images aren’t they? To me anyway, although mainstream media and politicians in this country for some reason do not seem to see this. Setting aside the implied discourtesy in using a term not in use by the ppl concerned, is this because they don’t want to accept the distinction between school and education?
How about registration v licensing?
Registration implies entering something on a register. It doesn’t imply much in the way of permission or conditions. Licensing is a whole different ball game. It’s getting that permission, satisfying those conditions.
What was proposed by Graham Badman and accepted by the government was a licensing scheme for home education. Not a registration system. Not a simple list of names, though even that would be discriminatory given that they aren’t registering under school age children, or children at private school. Instead, they are talking about submitting plans that need to be approved, a process that has to be repeated on a yearly basis.
Does that sound like a simple register?
It’s a license. A license to do what you are legally obliged to do anyway, a requirement that the state approve the education you are planning to provide your child. Which changes the balance of power and the responsibilities involved.
At the moment it’s the parents’ decision. Which is how it should be. So just say no to licensing, and call it what it is, whenever and wherever you mention it. Not registration at all.
Licensing it is from now on!
Oh that’s much better articulated than my version 🙂
hear hear
yep, license it is,
.-= HelenHaricot´s last blog ..By: HelenJ =-.
An interesting perspective. In the US, school is a verb as well as a noun, and is a synonym for educate, so when I person is “home schooled,” they are educated at home, as opposed to educated at a public or private school. Was there a particular reason you chose this post for #ArchiveDay? Something changing in how educating children at home is regulated in the UK? I don’t get your papers. 😉
Hi Paula
School is a verb here too, but it’s got a very different nuance to educate, more along the lines of training I suppose.
I chose it because at this time of year there’s an influx of new home educators to the various support groups, and some of them can’t understand our reluctance to just have local authority officials trip in and out of our homes. Also, there’s a general election coming up, and the party who introduced the Badman review 5 years ago will have us in their sights if they get back in power. So it feels like something we should be very aware of and sharing still.