Why does Home-Education have such a low profile in the UK?

<![CDATA[Originally shared by Homeschools Uk

Why does Home-Education have such a low profile in the UK?
Home-Education does not receive support and recognition commensurate with the number of children involved or the benefits that they are receiving . The reasons for this are complex. The majority of people who teach their children at home do so because they have been failed, one way or another by the state-funded school system. Typically, they do not have the financial resources to be able to afford private education and settle for home-education because it is the only option left to them.
This applies to parents of children who have special educational needs, children who experience stress at school, children who cannot adapt to the school curriculum, children who are bullied or subject to racist abuse at school and also to parents who wish to provide their children with a level of moral or religious education that cannot be guaranteed by schools in their area. Only a minority of home-educating families are aware at the outset of the educational advantages of home-educating .
These factors combine to make home-educating families shy of drawing attention to themselves: parents are often worried that their own lack of teaching qualifications will make them open to criticism from education professionals; many parents have experienced situations of conflict with the staff of their local schools before finally deciding to home-educate; and parents that choose to homeschool on ethical or religious grounds may themselves suffer abuse from the majority population for the moral stand that they have chosen to take in their own lives.
Even more significantly, there is no money or status to be gained through home-education. It is not possible to be a professional in this field, it arises out of being a parent and is part of a twenty-four hour a day, seven days a week job that is only ever undertaken out of love and never for monetary reward. This means that there are no university departments, no teachers unions, no head teachers, no research institutes and no government officials promoting home-education. The only people who are fully aware of its benefits are the families involved and they are too busy doing it to have time to promote it in a way that does it full justice.]]>