Back in April we posted about a homeschooler in Germany was being threaten with jail. Today my father sent me a link to a post about a homeschooler in Belgium being threaten with jail.
Alexandra Colen and her husband Paul Belien have homeschooled their five children in Belgium. Alexandra writes:
"Since we started homeschooling in the 1990s the homeschooling movement in Belgium has been growing. The number of homeschoolers is small, comprising only 202 children in primary school and 311 children in high school. Nevertheless the figure has quadrupled in the past five years, as parents are seceding from the official schools where drugs and violence are rampant and pupils are indoctrinated with political correctness and socialism." It sounds like Belgium has many of the same problems parents are seeing in the United States.
Belgium passed a bill three years ago requiring homeschool parents to school their children "respecting the respect [sic] for the fundamental human rights and the cultural values of the child itself and of others." The law doesn't clarify what this means. The law allows inspectors to decide what it means, and if inspectors give two negative reports the parents are suppose to send their children to a school recognized by the government as official. What do you think public officials are going to do? Do you think they'll give negative reports? Ha!
Four of Alexandra & Paul's children have moved off to university. The fifth child is still at home. Paul and Alexandra haven't signed their agreement. The Belgian Bureaucrats don't like this and are threatening to throw Paul in jail. Alexandra writes that families who do sign their agreement get investigated. The officials find fault and try to force the parents to send their children to the officially recognized schools. And parents who don't sign away their rights are regarded as criminals. Dammed if you do, and dammed if you don't.
It is very crazy.
It looks like part of the reason Alexandra and Paul are being hassled is they are heavily involved in politics. Paul runs The Brussels Journal, a conservative online news service. The government doesn't like what the Journal writes.
The comments are also very interesting. As bad as things are in Belgium, from one of the comments it looks like things are worse in Spain. In Spain children "have right to go on strike, meaning that just when some of them get together and decide it, that is enough to be free not to attend lectures." What a crazy mixed up world.
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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, education, Belgium, bureaucrates, public schools, politics, Alexandra Colen, Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, Brussels Journal
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