Term-time holidaymakers are taking our free education for granted

THE year 1870 was a great one in Parliament and we should all give thanks for it on a regular basis. It was the year of the Education Act, a result of the campaign by the National Education League for free, compulsory and non-religious education for all children.

It was also the year when the first Married Women’s Property Act was passed, a result of the campaign by feminist Millicent Fawcett. She’d had her purse stolen by a pickpocket and was shocked into action when she heard the thief was charged with “stealing the property of Henry Fawcett” (her husband). Until the 1870 legislation women who married gave up all their rights to their property or earnings. They were in effect their husbands’ chattels. “I felt as if I had been charged with theft myself,” Mrs Fawcett said.

We heard this week that there is to be a statue of her in Parliament Square – and it’s good that she is remembered.

But we take that other milestone Act of 1870 for granted: the precious right to a free education. So I have little sympathy for Jon Platt, the father who has lost his three-year legal fight to take his children on holiday in term time. Yes, it’s annoying that holiday firms hike their prices in the school holidays. But tough. If children swan off to Disneyworld it’s disruptive for teachers, for the class as a whole and probably rather awkward for the children concerned. Education is more important. If, for example, time has to be taken for a bereavement that’s different. But the human right to two weeks on the Costa Brava? I don’t think so.