Yeshivah pupils will have to be registered
THE BOARD of Deputies has backed government proposals to require children of school age in yeshivot to be registered with the local authority.
Nadhim Zahawi, the Education Secretary, last week announced plans to introduce registers for home-schooled children and other children who learn outside regulated educational settings.
This would include strictly-Orthodox children. A spokesman for the Board said: “We support government plans for a homeschooling register to ensure all children who do not attend schools, still have access to a safe, broad, highquality education.”
More than a thousand strictlyOrthodox teenage boys of school age in Hackney are estimated to be learning in yeshivot which currently fall outside the legal definition of a school.
Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner, said: “The register of children not in school is vital in making sure that we are able to keep children safe and engaged, wherever they are learning.
“The reason I’ve pressed for the rollout of a national register is that it is all about ensuring children are safe, that they get the best education they can, helping to unlock doors to their future, and that those dedicated parents who choose to educate their children at home feel supported in doing so.”
In response earlier to a public consultation, Baroness Barran, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Schools System, indicated that the government would make it a legal requirement for parents to register their children if their children are not in mainstream education.
Additionally, proprietors of unregistered settings would have to supply information for the register.
Pupils at part-time settings such as Sunday morning chedarim would not have to be registered.