- All vegetarians* are required to register with their local authorities, and inform the authorities whenever they move house.
- Vegetarians must be visited annually by an inspector (usually a former employee of the meat industry), who will assess their dietary plans for the coming year against government standards.
- Inspectors have the right to interview children in vegetarian families, without their parents present, in order to find out whether the children are safe and well, and ask them if they are happy to be living on a vegetarian diet.
No need to use your imagination - this is reality.
These are measures actually being proposed by the British government, not for vegetarians but for people in England who make the lawful choice to educate their children outside the school system.
The proposed heavy-handed system of registration, monitoring and inspection will cost millions of pounds to implement. Money which will be diverted from providing services for families who actually need and want help. If you are looking for a needle in a haystack, don't make the haystack bigger!
If home educators can be treated this way, who will be next?
Would you be happy for your child to be questioned alone by a government official they do not know, when there is no reason to suppose any crime has been committed?
Do you trust the government to keep safe the personal data of thousands of families?
To bring in this system, the government is proposing to change the law. We have a short time in which to raise our voices and object.
What you can do:
- Respond to the DCSF consultation at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/consultations/index.cfm?action=consultationDetails&consultationId=1643&external=no
- Write to your MP
- Write to local and national newspapers
- Tell your friends - pass this message on by email, blog it, photocopy it
*or people who don't drive/people who use homeopathy/smokers/people who don't have a television/any other group of people exercising their lawful right to make a minority choice
13 comments:
I like the choice of diet lifestyle. Same could be done for religion, or political outlook, or one of many many things.
I'm printing out the report and give it a good read on the train home.
I
Great post
Lets hope all this hassle results in people seeing how HE is a good lifestyle choice, good for children, good for parents.
I've read the report online, need to digest it but will be responding to it.
I enjoyed your post - very well put.
I'll blog about this & if it's ok with you & Allie link to this post as I think people really need to read this.
Hi Peri,
Yes, please do link here.
I am feeling quite despondent after reading pages of comments on the bbc.
Will be blogging the first part of my reaction here.
Think we could do with some way of linking all these posts in a marginally more permanent way that in each other's blogposts though, will give some thought to that.
Thanks for that post Dani, I have already blogged my first reactions and to say I'm horrified by the review would be an understatement....if you thought the comments on the BBC website were bad enough, did you see the 6'o'clock news where the Beeb managed to bring Eunice Spry into their report on the review? Honestly, a general election can't come soon enough! We should all spread the message as much as we can, 'If you tolerate this then your children will be next'...
p.s. hope it's ok if I link to you as well?
You can contact Ed Balls too - on his website he says "You can contact Ed at any time on any local or national issue that is concerning you or your local community."
http://www.edballs.com/index.jsp?c=/p/contacts/ed.jsp
I suggest we bombard the facist.
Hi, I've spent all afternoon blogging a summary of the report and my thoughts on it. I've linked to this post too - hope that's ok :)
http://notatschool.today.com/2009/06/11/the-government-commissioned-review-of-home-education-out-today/
Good post as usual, will also be linking, thanks :)
Great post and unfortunately very true, who knows who they will target next after home edders. I've forwarded your email hope that's ok.
Great post, will link to it. Have also blogged my own responses to the report.
Funny, I was just thinking of the comparison of getting a meat-eater to report on vegetarianism! Great post.
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