Plan for home school register dropped
A CRACKDOWN on home schooling has been rejected by ministers amid claims that a review into social cohesion has been watered down.
The recommendation that local authorities set up a register for children taken out of mainstream schools has been dropped from the Government’s long-overdue integration strategy, which was unveiled yesterday.
It comes after the publication of Dame Louise Casey’s landmark 2016 report into social cohesion, which criticised successive governments over the failure to halt a growing segregation of communities across the country.
A key recommendation of the report included establishing the registers, which were also heavily backed by Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of schools.
It was hoped that the registers would shut down a loophole in the law, which allows parents to take their children out of school without having to provide details of how they intend to educate them, with many ending up in illegal madrassas and religious schools. But a Green Paper unveiled yesterday by Sajid Javid, the Communities Secretary, contained no plans to adopt registers.
While it was initially reported that the home schools register would be included, sources at the Department for Education last night told The Daily Telegraph that the policy was “categorically not in the Green Paper”.
It comes after Mr Javid and Philip Hammond reportedly clashed over funding for the plans, with the Chancellor allegedly refusing to provide the £200million recommended to finance the strategy. As a result, only £50million has been put aside to implement the plans, while the strategy is merely a series of further consultations rather than concrete policies.
While Dame Louise said she welcomed the strategy after it had been apparently kicked into the “long grass” she warned that the funding allocated would not be enough to deliver the “seismic” shift needed. Writing in The Sun yesterday, she said: “[The Government] must take immediate tough action on unregulated home education and unregistered and illegal schools. Parents should have to opt out of education for their children, not opt in.”