First of all we should realise that this is an exposure draft for the new Victorian Education Act.

I think the whole idea is to gauge public opinion on the proposed DRAFT laws.

This debate has been hijacked by the Home Schooling brigade. If you wish to home school that is your right, but the Govt. also has a right to make sure that this is being done properly.

Whether it is for reasons of a better education, bullying etc. most home schoolers do not want anything to do with the education system that they see as failing thier children.

Sorry you are living on another planet if you think that Govts of any persuasion will not want to regulate your life on any matter.

Home schooling may very well be the best option for many but can you honestly say that you have not heard of a case of child minding not education in home schooling?

Susan, You are lucky to be able to home school you kids. Many do not have the ability to do so, most for financial reasons others for intellectual.

My car is registered, so is my dog, so is my tax file number. Why shouldn't we register people who want to home school?

It may be a way to protect kids and to ensure they really are being schooled.

Sadly Steve, you do not appear to have read the comments correctly. Home educators are more concerned with the fact they are being forced to register under as yet undisclosed regulations. It is hardly unreasonable that when someone is asked to adhere to rules, they are first informed what those rules are.

Your view that an exposure draft is to allow the public time to comment on proposed legislation is correct. However, how is the Government able to gauge public opinion on the draft, when it was released a couple of days before the Christmas school holidays, and the closing date for comments is before the school year commences.

People have to know about the draft before they can form an opinion about it. The timing of the draft would seem to indicate the Government has no wish for any public debate on this bill.

By the way regarding your comment “you are living on another planet if you think that Govts of any persuasion will not want to regulate your life on any matter.” I find this somewhat disturbing. Perhaps if we were living in a totalitarian state, the Government would have the right to regulate my life on any matter, however thankfully we do not

Susan Wight : As I. F. Stone once said, "Never believe anything until it is officially denied". It's pretty brazen isn't it?

Seether : You first-name from behind your own incomplete or perhaps made-up name and idly suggest hysteria, all in your opening sentence. From your comments, it seems clear that you have either an unstated interest here, or else are a little naive about institutional business-as-usual, or both.

Maximus : The early Marx is actually quite accurate about the tendencies of mass institutions. His biggest fault was that he couldn't bring himself to believe so bleak a prospect as his early analysis suggested, and so went on to elaborate his own particular message of hope... The ALP, by the way, whatever its history, is barely even socialist today. It is is not Ms. Kosky's 220,000 pa salary, government car with driver, extra government car for self-drive, and contempt for her electorate that put the lie to her Socialist Left posturings. What really does it is her contract with Boston Consulting Group to do workforce projection, so that the government can tell how many children it needs to turn toward what destiny. This is neither left-corporate nor right-corporate, just corporate. You'll get not a squeak from the other side of the house on that one. It is the sort of thing that they too would have considered prudent. And more than a few of them would like to turn poorer stay-at-home Mums into taxpayers, and the young children they are forced to leave into child care recipients.

Realist : Hah ha ha ha ha ha. Tee hee. This thread was beginning to run out of humour.

Tasman : The union has such an interest, but so do a lot of other people. Think about the wonderful supply contracts that a 6 to 7 billion dollar budget funds. The corporations at the other end of those contracts don't like declining state school enrolments either.
I once worked for an outfit that included some unions, including a teacher's union. The teacher's union wasn't even popular with the other unions---they thought themselves superior to other labour. They were hard to work with, too. Nonetheless, they can be useful allies, and it is worth building a working relationship with them, once you have enough power to make it worth their while. In other places, they have proved themselves capable of working with homeschoolers against e.g. compulsory testing. Their interests and homeschooler interests are not highly aligned, but they're not diametrically opposite, either. I sure wouldn't be happy if I were a teacher and I knew that Ms. Kosky had a big workforce projection contract with a high-power American consultancy of the sort that learned industrial relations by advising its big corporate clients how to downsize a decade or two ago---kind of like the sort of doctor who advises where to place the spikes in an Iron Maiden.

Steve Madden : And when do you expect to add a child to your car-dog-TFN collection?

I have home educated my children for almost 30 years, so home education has been around for a while. During this time the movement has grown all over the world.
To bring in laws to regulate home education is acting out of fear and ignorance.
I think the government should take a different approach and ask families to register, to then provide them with assistance and support. They would be wise if they also spent a little researching home education so they can support it rather than destroy a viable alternative that works.

Seeter and Realist
I have a 26 year old son that has never attended a school but owns and operates his own successful company employing 15 unskilled people that have come out of our state school system. That's why I home educated my children.