Losing our religion
by Angus Saul, Artillery Row:
Equality impact assessments aren’t exactly page-turners, but the Department for Education’s recent one on Regulating Independent Educational Institutions was certainly enlightening — worryingly so.
Like all such assessments, it examines how people from different backgrounds would be affected by a particular proposal. In this case it is a plan to expand the definition of independent schools — a plan being brought in through the Schools Bill.
Now the Schools Bill itself is rife with problems. Part one sought to give the Department for Education enormous control over “virtually every aspect” of academy trusts in England. The House of Lords was so scathing in its criticism that the DFE has already agreed to (temporarily) drop clauses 1-18.
Part three has aroused the ire of home-schooling groups and parents for undermining the long-established principle that it is parents and not the state who are responsible for the education of their children. At the same time, the Government is opening the door to local authorities to demand intrusive information about home-educating families, for inclusion on their registers. If “such details as the means by which the child is being educated as may be prescribed” isn’t already wide enough, they’ve tagged on “any other information that may be prescribed”.
Part four, meanwhile, replaces the existing definition of Independent Educational Institutions with one designed to draw many, many more bodies into the grasp of regulation.
Which brings us back to this equality assessment. Wanting to ensure children are receiving a proper education is a commendable aim. But a problem emerges when the Government says it is “not acceptable” for some children to attend schools which “isolate them from mainstream society” either “incidentally” or “as a deliberate rejection of that society’s values”.
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