| The Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) which accompanied the government's proposed legislation (withdrawn for now) to provide for additional regulation of home education, mentioned several times a "Ministry internal audit of home education" conducted in 2024. I requested a copy of the documents relating to this under the Official Information Act, and this week was sent 3 documents, which I am linking below. |  |
They make for interesting reading. There is much I could say about them - my own printed copies are covered in notes. For now, I want to make these available for all home educators to read, rather than wait until I have time to speak to them in detail. Just a few points I will mention:
These two chief concerns obviously, in hindsight, sit behind much of the RIS and the Minister's proposed legislative changes. At least we now have that information and can speak to it as part of our on-going engagement with the Ministry and Minister before any new draft legislation emerges.
- The cover letter notes that in response to the audit, the Ministry is working on updating the home education application forms and guidance for parents, and outlines some of what they will be looking for. This is a work in progress; new forms will be released in the coming months.
- It also notes that the Ministry is considering centralising assessment of applications to a national team - this is still being investigated but looking increasingly likely to happen. Doing so may overcome a number of the issues identified in the audit, particularly around consistency of processes and proper handling of related documents.
- The documents refer to a Chief Court Judge raising concerns in 2022 around "the increased number of home-educated child harm cases that were coming through the court and questioned the Ministry's role in these cases." There is no indication of just how many such cases there are, or had previously been, and how they compare proportionately to the number of children in school who are harmed, not whether home education itself was actually a factor in the harm that was considered to have occurred. This Judge's enquiry is purportedly the whole reason for the internal audit to begin with. And this is where the questions about home educated child "health, safety and well-being" begin.
- The documents also keep referring to "equitable and excellent outcomes" - this is a catch-phrase from the Ministry of Education's Statement of Intent 2021-2026 which sets out the purposes and expectations for the education system, coming out of Chris Hipkin's 2018 onwards consultation process for overhauling the education system.
- The "terms of reference" document for the audit mentions a range of matters that they wanted to look at. They considered the engagement important because of the 81% increase in home educators (as of 2023) since 2017, and the $9.3m budget allocation (that's for supervision allowances). Notably they don't pay attention to the fact that those same children, if in state schools, would account for $126m in per student funding.
- As part of the audit, they looked at a sample of approved exemption applications. Given that there are some 2,300 applications approved each year, a statistically significant sample size would be 330 applications. However, the Ministry only looked at 13! And note that for 3 of those, the records requested could not be found, and for a further 6 some records were missing or incomplete. Yet it is based upon those 13 that they drew various conclusions.
- One of their chief concerns is the lack of "visibility or routine monitoring" of the "presence, participation and progress of home educated children." Though from much of the language, it seems the Ministry is more concerned with its own reputation and risk, than the actual students themselves. Anyway, this sits behind recommendations to review how the Ministry tracks learning and progress for home educated students.
- Their other chief concern is around "well-being" - essentially coming down to whether the "learning environment" is suitable and recommending that they should "include an assessment of the home educator's dwelling" as part of the exemption criteria. There are problems galore with this idea! It likely deserves an entire blog post of its own.
These two chief concerns obviously, in hindsight, sit behind much of the RIS and the Minister's proposed legislative changes. At least we now have that information and can speak to it as part of our on-going engagement with the Ministry and Minister before any new draft legislation emerges.
Documents
Each of these documents is a PDF and should open in a new window when clicked on. I encourage every home educator to read them for themselves.
However, note that these were written 2 years ago, and while they do sit behind some of the ongoing work that is happening, there have been significant staff changes and restructuring in the meantime, and the implementation of any "ideas" presented in reports always comes down to resourcing (ie funding) and Ministerial priorities. Just because the Ministry has made certain recommendations to themselves or the Minister in any given report, doesn't mean that is what will actually happen. So please do not be overly alarmed by any particulars.
However, note that these were written 2 years ago, and while they do sit behind some of the ongoing work that is happening, there have been significant staff changes and restructuring in the meantime, and the implementation of any "ideas" presented in reports always comes down to resourcing (ie funding) and Ministerial priorities. Just because the Ministry has made certain recommendations to themselves or the Minister in any given report, doesn't mean that is what will actually happen. So please do not be overly alarmed by any particulars.
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