Damning insight

You reported on a survey (1 January) showing that "30 per cent of Scottish parents would teach their child at home, with 60 per cent saying they did not trust the education system". These statistics are a damning insight into how parents feel they were failed by the school system, and an encouraging sign that they will not stand by and allow it to be repeated with their own children.

It is, however, a little ironic that this survey should be published in the same week as the Scottish Executive issued invitations to a selection of Scotland’s home education groups to attend a closed consultation on attempts to resurrect the draft guidance to local authorities on home education.

The previous draft received almost blanket condemnation from the home education community, opposition MSPs, and numerous dissenting voices from within the governing coalition.

The Executive appears intent on restricting parents’ right to home educate, and to force those who are found "acceptable" to follow a style of education which mirrors the mass-produced, heavily tested and narrow product offered by the education system that the majority of parents, as the survey shows, thoroughly distrust.

In home education, the Executive must open up consultation of the rehashed guidance to all parents.

ALAN TAIT

Waverley Crescent

Livingston, West Lothian