Interest in homeschooling has surged over the last year, as lockdowns, face mask mandates and social distancing – combined with teachers’ unions efforts to keep school closed – have damaged the public school offerings.
And it’s not just in America. In the United Kingdom, more than 40,000 students were formally removed from public schools from September 2020 to April 2021, almost double the average from previous years.
And that has alarmed lawmakers there, to the point members of Parliament now are demanding a “national registry” of all students who school outside the system.
The BBC reports a committee of lawmakers is demanding that national list of children to remove an “unacceptable level of opaqueness.”
The report said the Commons Education Committee claims it is important to “get a grip” on the number of students being educated outside of government control.
Home educators, the report noted, are warning such a move will only increase the distrust many parents already have in the “system.”
It was a report called “Strengthening Home Education” by lawmakers that charges the government fails to collect and compile enough details about children in homeschooling programs.
MP [Member of Parliament] Robert Halfon claimed it was “frankly astonishing” that the government was only able to make a “best guess” over the standard of education children schooled at home were receiving, the report said.
The lawmakers have claimed their goal is to make sure those who are schooled at home are…
Read full story here: UK Government Calls For National List of Homeschooled Children | Harbingers Daily