Are you thinking about moving abroad and are worried that homeschooling may be illegal in your destination country? In the United States, homeschooling is booming these days, especially after the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic affected the public education system. However, in the rest of the world the picture is more complex than it seems. If you are interested in the legality of homeschooling in different parts of the world, read on to learn about the reasons why homeschooling is considered illegal, the list of countries where this practice is not legal, and the analysis of the legal situation of homeschooling in specific countries. Well, during the decades that spanned the late 19th and early 20th centuries, public education systems were first established in Western countries and then around the world.
These systems came with their own truancy laws that made public school attendance compulsory. Therefore, the paradigm of education during these years was that the state was responsible for the formal education of children and parents were obliged to send them to school. As we shall see, in many countries this is still the current paradigm. In Sweden, for example, education authorities based their argument on the right of children to “have professional teachers teach them an objective, science-based curriculum”.
While Germany considers the crucial role of “school-based education” in the socialization of children. Information on homeschooling in different countries of the world is varied and, in some cases, non-existent. However, there is enough data to compile a long list of countries where homeschooling is illegal or completely prohibited. It's time to discuss the specific situation of some countries where homeschooling is still illegal.
As the largest economy in Europe, the case of Germany is interesting, since it completely disagrees with its main Western allies, such as the United States, the United Kingdom and France. The fact that it was the European Court of Human Rights, the court that handed down the judgment, highlights the uncertainty surrounding homeschooling in the European Union, where some countries have regulated it, while others, such as Germany and Sweden, still prohibit it. In another high-profile case, a US judge granted asylum to a German family studying at home in the United States. The judge was quoted as saying that “students who study at home are a particular social group that the German government is trying to suppress.
However, homeschooling may be approved for specific reasons, but the country would not allow it for religious or philosophical reasons. Spain is the perfect example of how laws related to homeschooling are in a period of discussion and transition. On the one hand, the Spanish Constitution recognizes the “right of parents to choose the education of their children in accordance with their own personal, moral and religious convictions”. However, on the other hand, the Spanish education law establishes the compulsory nature of school attendance.
When a Spanish family went to court arguing the contradictory nature of these laws, the court ruled in their favor. However, no new laws have been passed to regulate this issue, placing homeschooling in Spain in a kind of time vacuum. Brazil is another example of the current fluid state of homeschooling laws. As in most countries, homeschooling was illegal in the South American giant, but in recent years there has been a growing movement to regulate and legalize it.
The Supreme Court issued a ruling that “considered homeschooling constitutional,” but that new laws were needed to regulate it. Currently, only the state of Paraná and the Federal District have legalized homeschooling, while there is still no federal legislation in this regard. However, there is an option to participate in distance education through Turkey's national television channels. This practice is not considered homeschooling, as students must go to government-approved centers and take standardized tests.
Parents who do not send their children to school are accused of being criminals and may be sent to prison. This is a difficult question to answer and is at the center of legal debate in many countries around the world. While there is no right to be homeschooled as such, there is a tension between a freedom and a right that underlies the current debate around homeschooling. On the one hand, parents must be free to “raise their children” according to their religious and moral beliefs, without state interference.
On the other hand, all children have the right to education. The point at which different nations and courts find a balance between the right of children to education and the freedom of parents to raise them as they see fit is reflected in that country's current laws on homeschooling. A law professor at Harvard University has sparked controversy after calling for a ban on homeschooling. While most of the United States is waiting in confinement for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis to end, leftists are keeping busy criticizing parents for teaching their children at home and, in fact, are calling for a total ban on homeschooling, claiming that many parents choose homeschooling They have a Christian perspective.
In mind. There are more than thirty countries where homeschooling is illegal. Homeschooling makes it much more difficult for children to succeed academically and financially. In June, if pandemic conditions permit, Harvard University will host a conference not open to the public to discuss the alleged dangers of homeschooling and strategies for legal reform.
Even conservatives who defend homeschooling rarely question the compulsory attendance laws that make this harassment possible. In short, homeschooling should no longer be an option, since it denies the child the basic right to an education that prepares the student for society. While it is neither practical nor reasonable to prohibit homeschooling, approximately thirty to forty countries prohibit homeschooling or make it nearly impossible. Despite the lack of a state law that directly approves homeschooling, other aspects of the state education code make clear that the legislature approves parents' homeschools to function as private schools.
He argues that homeschooling does not usually pay for such education and should supposedly be banned. The article says that a law professor at Harvard University has generated controversy after calling for a ban on homeschooling. First, the only thing that stands between homeschooling students and a truancy charge in some areas is that many school districts and law enforcement agencies perceive themselves as underfunded, understaffed, and overworked. Elizabeth Bartholet, professor of public interest law at Wasserstein and faculty director of the Children's Defense Program at the School of Law, wrote an article recommending an alleged ban on homeschooling for children in the United States.
Children who learn at home now account for approximately 3 to 4 percent of school-age children in the United States, a figure equivalent to that of those who attend charter schools and more than the number currently attending parochial schools. If there are cases of parents who pretend to educate their children at home, but don't really teach them anything, I would love to hear about them. In the United States, Bartholet says, state legislators have been hesitant to restrict the practice because of the Homeschoolet Legal Defense Association, a conservative Christian homeschooling group, which she describes as small, well-organized, and “overwhelmingly politically powerful.”. Students who practice homeschooling suffer from lost opportunities, lack of schooling and the prevention of better education and even health; to avoid future harm to children's education, homeschooling must be marked as illegal or parents must be fined for keeping their children at home during schooling.
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