Member

I now turn to Amendment 438 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wei, which seeks to provide fast-track access to a QTS pathway for parents who are home educators. Of course I respect the noble Lord’s desire to recognise the experience of home educators. However, to be awarded QTS, individuals must demonstrate that they have met the teachers’ standards. These set out the critical professional skills and experience that schools, parents and children rightly expect from teachers. Once again, the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, identified the real distinction between teaching your own child at home and teaching a larger number of pupils, with all the other responsibilities that teaching in a school brings. It would be inappropriate to lower these professional standards through a fast-track system for any group in this way.