Irish home educators are once again under threat as proposals have been covertly concocted, with no stakeholder consultation, to allow state agents to access private family homes and force children to submit to interrogation by strangers without their consent. In tried and tested dissembling fashion, the Irish state is selectively citing UNCRC Articles in an attempt to validate the violation.
Of coincidental interest is that Tusla, the state agency responsible for this latest anti-family sting, is headed up by another Scottish export, Gordon Jeyes, who was formerly education director at Stirling Council where he singularly failed to impress local home educators over the many years he had the opportunity to ‘get it right’. Jeyes also has eCAF form, so the spectre of ECM and GIRFEC is looming ghoulishly over Ireland, which is poised to introduce its own groomers’ charter, disguised in ‘rights enforcement’ clothing, without any public debate. Déjà vu, Jimmy!
You can read more on the ICHEA website.
Meanwhile, please consider signing this petition in support of Irish home educators: Postpone Tusla Consultation with Home Educators
I/we have concerns over the way the proposed consultation with home educating families on behalf of Tusla is being conducted. We are calling for the proposed workshops and survey to be postponed until such time as talks between Tusla and the representative home education groups have been held to discuss these concerns and to plan a more suitable way forward for this consultation.
HSLDA has also highlighted the issue: State Will Isolate and Question Children about Homeschooling
It is well worth parents reminding their children that they have the right to offer a view, but only if they choose to exercise it, and can opt to decline the ‘opportunity’. Compelling or coercing children to meet with strangers demanding personal information, with no right to have a trusted adult present, is a gross infringement of their UNCRC rights, which are once again being deliberately subverted by the state to suit its own agenda of increased citizen surveillance and interference in children’s and families’ lives. We have covered this in a previous article: When children’s rights are wronged.
It is also worth repeating ad nauseam to those who don’t ever seem to ‘get it right’ that the UNCRC applies, at least allegedly, to all children, including schooled children (whose views are routinely ignored, contrary to Article 12). It should not to be treated like a ‘pick and mix’ sweetie counter where the charms of strawberry creams trump those of chewy caramels.
The late Katarina Tomasevski (former UN Special Rapporteur on Education) drew specific attention to the oxymoronic nature of ‘rights enforcement’ in education to suit the state’s purposes.
Statement by Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education [para 5]
The objective of getting all school-aged children to school and keeping them there till they attain the minimum defined in compulsory education is routinely used in the sector of education, but this objective does not necessarily conform to human rights requirements. In a country where all school-aged children are in school, free of charge, for the full duration of compulsory education, the right to education may be denied or violated. The core human rights standards for education include respect of freedom. The respect of parents’ freedom to educate their children according to their vision of what education should be has been part of international human rights standards since their very emergence.
The Irish state seems hell bent on picking and choosing which rights to enforce and on whom. How long will it be before the Garda start marching citizens to the polling booths at gunpoint to “ensure their voices are heard”, like turkeys being forced to vote for the flavour of their own stuffing?
