LET FREEDOM RING
After an apparently successful trial, the Czechs are poised to open up home education:
The deputies of the junior ruling KDU-CSL and the senior opposition ODS have proposed to facilitate the home education of children, Lidove noviny (LN) wrote yesterday.
Czech parents are now allowed to teach their child at home only if they prove that he or she has a “significant reason” for not attending school.
The authorities accept a child’s physical handicap or a family’s religious belief as a significant reason, the paper said.
The ODS and KDU-CSL bill, which is to be submitted to the Chamber of Deputies after the summer holidays, will allow parents to teach their children themselves, without proving a significant reason.
As one might expect, the education ministry is opposed, but, in a bit of a surprise, the broader establishment seems not to be in lockstep:
“We support individual education and we want to improve its possibilities,” lower house education committee head Walter Bartos (ODS) said.
According to the paper, a majority of experts on education support this view.
[…]
Child psychologist Vaclav Mertin told the paper that he welcomes the bill. “I am against the rejection of home education without even giving parents this chance,” he said.
Thanks, comrades!