Nanny strikes again

A review on home education was released today; unsurprisingly it recommended that the government interfere even more, and even less surprisingly the government is accepting all of its recommendations wholeheartedly. What a surprise, Ed Balls accepting the recommendation to exercise more influence and control over home and family life!

The BBC reports:

Home educating families in England are going to have to register annually, as the government has accepted the recommendations of a review.

The review also says local authorities should have the right to visit any child taught at home.

The government commissioned a review to find out whether local councils were monitoring home educated children, or offering parents enough support.

It has also been concerned that home education could be a cover for abuse.

Firstly, as a point of principle, education is the primary duty of the family, not the state. Therefore, on the question of who should be inspecting whom, parents should be inspecting local education authorities, and not vice versa.

Secondly, the government assumes that it knows better than the parents how to educate children. I do not think that this holds sufficiently generally to be a justifiable premiss: for sure, some parents teach inappropriately, but not enough to warrant the intrusion proposed.

Finally, we have seen this week that guarantees do not exist in this world. According to the fount of knowledge, sixty percent of all child sexual abuse is committed by an adult who is unrelated but known to the child; like, for instance, a nursery worker (BBC).

What causes such things to happen? I suggest that in large part it is the nannying attitude of the government. We have to submit ourselves to checks and procedures in all walks of life—I am about to draft a covering letter for some documents intended to prove that I live where I claim for a financial product—and the overall result of these checks and procedures is that once they have been cleared, the person is considered 'clean' and permitted to go about their business. Rather than have a culture of discretion and good judgment, we have instituted a culture of compliance and box-ticking.

There is no evidence to warrant the concerns about home-educational child abuse, and it is statistically more likely to happen at school or nursery, yet LEAs are being told to interfere in family lives. If this simply creates yet more compliant box-tickers, it is likely to make matters far, far worse.