Last night in the House of Lords, the clause to regulate home educators was thrown out of the Children, Schools and Families Bill. So the status quo remains. Congratulations to all of you who have worked so hard to help make this happen!
From: http://aeuk.blogspot.com/
Further down on this website there is this entry:
The strength of our movement is the willingness of homeschoolers to look beyond our own borders to help persecuted brothers and sisters—for their own good and ours. In light of this fact, Home School Legal Defense Association is seeking volunteers to host or support persecuted homeschool families. Read more >>
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By Michael Steininger
BBC World Service, Europe Today |
Earlier this year a German family was granted political asylum in the United States because in their own country they weren’t allowed to home school their children.
Yet others in Germany are not letting the law dissuade them from choosing their preferred method of education.
Up to 1,000 German families are thought to be home schooling
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Jonathan and Irene Erz are busy people.
They have got 200 calves and eight children to raise on their small farm outside the town of Ulm, in Germany’s southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.
On top of that they have decided to wage a battle against the law that prevents them from educating their children at home.
Children in Germany are required to attend a registered school.
Exceptions are extremely rare and will be made in cases of ill health, but never on religious grounds or to allow for alternative methods of learning.
Parents can run their own schools, but these must be licensed and will be controlled by the state.
Those who defy the law face sanctions ranging from moderate fees to losing custody of their children.
‘Individualised curriculum’
Irene Erz was born and raised in Canada, and home-schooling has always been part of the educational landscape for her.
When she was looking for a good bi-lingual secondary school in the region for her eldest, 11-year-old twins Solomon and Kesia, she couldn’t find one that satisfied her.
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 School is the place for a peaceful dialogue between different opinions, values, religions and ideologies  Juergen Zoellner, Berlin’s education minister
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“We feel that we can offer our children the best upbringing through home-educating them,” Irene Erz says.
“We can offer an individualised curriculum allowing them to learn according to their needs and interests.”
Her husband Jonathan asked the local authorities to release his children from school duty and was turned down. Now he expects to be fined.
“This will end in court,” he says, “we are not sending them to school, that’s for sure. If the kids later decide they want to go to school, that’s fine, but I am not sending them”.
Social tolerance
The German authorities usually justify their tough stance by referring to the social aspect of school education.
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We think it’s time now in Germany to fight for this freedom Jonathan Erz
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“In our increasingly multicultural society school is the place for a peaceful dialogue between different opinions, values, religions and ideologies,” said Berlin’s education minister, Juergen Zoellner.
“It is a training ground for social tolerance. Therefore home-schooling is not an option for Germany.”
Germany is not entirely alone in its refusal.
The Swedish parliament is just in the process of tightening the laws on home-schooling, effectively banning it.
Bertil Östberg, State Secretary for Education, told the BBC’s Europe Today programme, that “children have the right to be taught by professional teachers, and the teaching should be objective and based on science”.
Echoing German concerns Mr Östberg added that “schools should be a meeting place where tolerance and social values are communicated”.
‘Battle to the end’
Jonathan and Irene Erz know that they have a long battle on their hands.
Home-schoolers don’t have a strong lobby in Germany.
Unofficial estimates put the number of home-schooling families in the country between 600 and 1,000.
Several of them have left for Austria, Switzerland or France, some have even gone to the US, although it is difficult for them to get residence permits.
For Jonathan Erz though, leaving is not an option.
“I am German,” he says, “this is my country. I decided to fight this battle to the end. We think it’s time now in Germany to fight for this freedom”.
This link can be found at :
By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, Latin America Correspondent
MINAS GERAIS, BRAZIL, March 26, 2010 – Despite the fact that his children passed difficult government imposed tests, and even qualified for law school at the ages of 13 and 14, homeschooler Cleber Nunes and his wife Bernadeth have been slapped with fines equivalent to a total of $3,200 for refusing to submit their children to the Brazilian school system.
However, Nunes told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that he has no intention to pay the fine, although he says that he might have to spend 15-30 days in jail if he does not.
Although homeschooling is common in many countries, including the United States, and is associated with higher levels of academic achievement, it is completely prohibited in Brazil, the government of which has become increasingly intrusive in recent decades following the establishment of a socialist regime in the 1990s.
Since Nunes began to homeschool his two oldest children four years ago, his family has been subject to repeated threats of fines, imprisonment, and loss of custody. However, he has resisted steadfastly and his case has gained national attention.
The guilty verdict in the criminal case against Nunes, which follows two negative verdicts in a parallel civil case that ended over a year ago, was given despite the fact that David and Jonatas Nunes had passed a difficult set of tests imposed by the criminal court.
“They had asked the kids to do the tests to check their level of knowledge, and also psychological tests to check their mental health,” Nunes told LifeSiteNews (LSN). “It seems that the only valid result they expected was the failure of the kids.”
The tests imposed by the court on Nunes’ children were so difficult that one of the teachers who had designed it reportedly admitted that she herself could not pass it. However, David and Jonatas Nunes both passed the exams by margins of five and eight percentage points.
Despite his sons’ performance, however, the government has again ruled against Nunes, this time in criminal court, and ordered a fine. The total amount in fines owed by Nunes as a result of the decisions against him has mounted to over $3,200 in US dollars.
“If they impose tests it means that two possibilities should be considered. They could be suffering intellectual abandonment, or not,” Nunes told LSN. “In other words, they were trying to prove they were victims. But they passed and they kept saying we were criminal.”
Nunes says that despite his success, the judge ruled against him because of his style of home schooling, in which the children direct their own learning, with Nunes overseeing the process.
“The judge said we left the children to learn by themselves,” said Nunes. “He recognized that they passed the university entrance examination and the tests, but said that it was by their own efforts,” he added, calling that a “joke.”
“They want to take control of them, of their minds”
Nunes says he has decided not to appeal the ruling, because Brazil’s Supreme Court has already refused to hear the appeal of his civil case. Although he has paid his wife’s fine to spare her jail time, he says he will not pay his own fine.
“The natural thing to do is appeal, but I don’t trust the Brazilian judges,” Nunes told LSN. “They already showed who they are and what they want. They are not interested in protecting our kids….They want to take control of them, of their minds, they want them out of their home.”
Although he has refused to comply with the rulings against him, Nunes currently faces no more legal difficulties stemming from the homeschooling of David and Jonatas, because they are now beyond the age of mandatory schooling.
However, his daughter could soon be subject to compulsory schooling in Brazil. She will soon turn four, the age at which compulsory schooling begins in Brazil.
This article can be found here: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10032601.html
Contact Information:
Cleber Nunes (he speaks English) can be contacted at: cleber@andradenunes.org
To contact the Brazilian Embassy:
Embassy of Brazil in the USA
3006 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC
20008-3634
Phone: (202) 238-2700
Fax: (202) 238-2827
Email: ambassador@brasilemb.org
Embassy of Brazil in Canada
450 Wilbrod Street
Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6M8
Phone: (613) 237-1090 or (613) 755-5160
Fax: (613) 237-6144
E-mail: mailbox@brasembottawa.org
Embassies of Brazil to other Nations: http://www.embassyworld.com/embassy/Brazil/Brazil_1/
Embassy of Brazil in Wellington: http://www.brazil.org.nz/
Previous LifeSiteNews coverage:
Homeschooling Showdown in Brazil: Children to be Tested by Court in Battle Over Educational Rights of Parents
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08081802.html
Shock: Brazilian Homeschooling Parents Face Arrest Even after Early-Teen Sons Pass Law School Exams
Family appeals case to Brazilian Supreme Court
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09040112.html
Brazilian Court Convicts Homeschooling Family Despite Evidence of Success
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/08122308.html
Brazilian Homeschoolers Score Surprise Victory in Showdown Against Government
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/sep/08090207.html
Brazilian Homeschool Couple May be Jailed if Their Children Fail Harsh Government Tests
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08082207.html
Homeschooling Showdown in Brazil: Children to be Tested by Court in Battle Over Educational Rights of Parents
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08081802.html
Brazilian Government Prosecutes Homeschooling Family, Threatens to Remove Children
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/mar/08030610.html
Following is a press release from a Canadian MP.
Maurice Vellacott, MP
Saskatoon-Wanuskewin
Vellacott opposes 1938 German law that chased persecuted home-schoolers to Canada
For Immediate Release
March 22, 2010
OTTAWA – A German home-schooling family is seeking asylum in Canada, and they are appearing before the Immigration and Refugee board in Alberta Tuesday to make their case to remain here.
Another German home-schooling family, seeking refuge in the United States, was recently granted permission to remain there. The law that these home-schoolers are being persecuted under is a 1938 piece of Nazi legislation. The law about compulsory school attendance from 1938
(Reichsschulpflichtgesetz) was the first general regulation in the German Reich without exceptions and with criminal consequences in case of contraventions (Habermalz, 2001: 218).
“Canada has a strong legacy of parental rights and home schooling has been an accepted expression of these rights in Canada,” notes Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott (Saskatoon-Wanuskewin). The family has already been in Canada for a little while and the mother is reported as saying that her two sons are thriving in Alberta: “For us, it’s a gift, a real gift to be able to home-school our children.”
Parents have different reasons for choosing the home-schooling option. For these parents, the primary reasons were freedom of conscience and concerns about the medical well-being of their children, reports their lawyer, Jean Munn.
“I commend these valiant parents for the commitment and devotion they have to the best interests of their children,” said Vellacott.
“I hope the Immigration and Refugee Board in Albert gives a favourable hearing to this case,” he added.
(See more information about home-schooling in Germany here:
http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Germany/201001260.asp)
For further comment, call (613) 992-1966 or (613) 297-2249