Page 4419 - Week 12 - Thursday, 26 October 2017
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The bill, as set out in clause 4, removes provisional registration. If the bill is passed, registration will involve only one step, providing full registration for up to two years. As it currently stands, a child can be removed from school education with no plan or evidence that education, let along sufficient education, will be provided in the home during the six-month provisional registration period.
There is also no limit on the number of times a parent may apply for provisional registration, which could be used, in rare cases, to circumvent the purpose of regulating home education. The government is aware of cases where a parent has been denied full registration due to inadequate education being provided in the home but the parent has been able to avoid enrolling their child in school by re-applying for provisional registration, which must be granted without discretion.
At present, 70 of the more than 300 children registered for home education are provisionally registered. There is a clear risk that these children will not attain the minimum educational standards required to participate in and constructively contribute to our community. The government recognises that parents who register their child for home education may need some help and a few weeks or months to develop curriculum material, develop modules for learning subjects and generally learn how best to educate their child before being able to provide documentation supporting their teaching practices. While most new home educators may use the provisional registration period to develop strategies to educate their child, the government is aware that some parents come to the end of the provisional period having made little or no progress towards developing educational strategies and plans.
The government has concluded that the most suitable response to this issue—that will protect the right of a child to receive an education appropriate to their needs—is to remove provisional registration, as proposed by the bill. This change is not intended to deter parents from choosing home education if they decide that that is right for their child but will ensure that there is sufficient oversight to ensure the best educational opportunities for the child.
Flexibility to allow parents the time to develop an educational approach appropriate to their child’s needs is retained. The bill provides that regulations may prescribe the information that parents must provide on an application for home education registration, and conditions on registration may be prescribed by regulation. Additionally, the director-general may grant registration for a period shorter than two years.
Relying on these and other provisions of the amended act, should the bill be passed, the government will make regulations that meet the policy objectives of the bill while meeting the needs of new home educators. I have asked the Education Directorate to work closely with existing home educators and representative groups, following introduction of the bill, to draft these regulations.
In removing provisional registration, the bill also streamlines and simplifies the home education registration process. Some parents are confident and able to provide appropriate home education and do not need a provisional registration period. But the
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