Member

Amendment 325 would introduce age-based exemption. We need to allow young people aged 14 and over with parental consent to be recognised as self-directed learners. We can give children a voice as well. Amendment 326 would ensure that families affected by war, disaster or collapse are not penalised for temporarily falling out of the formal education system. Amendment 423 acknowledges the many forms that education can take. A child tutoring younger siblings, trading services and doing community co-op, or building a portfolio of projects and achievements should not be deemed uneducated simply because their work does not fit a narrow academic metric. One family told me, “Our son doesn’t thrive on textbooks, but he’s built a local bicycle repair business, mentored three younger children in mechanics and logs every repair and client interaction as part of his learning”. If that is not education, I do not know what is.