Quebec's New Homeschool Policy - Pros and Cons

Here’s a bit of a teaser for a pair of articles I wrote analyzing Quebec’s new homeschooling policy when it came out in June. Please follow the links to read the articles in full.

Rigid Policies Anger Homeschoolers

An updated homeschooling policy released in June 2010 was met with dismay on the part of Quebec homeschoolers. Some were confused, most were angered. After several years of hard work homeschool support groups had put into informing the government and meeting with education ministry representatives, the document remained essentially unchanged from the white paper issued to school boards in 2005. Had the parents not been heard at all?

Read on to discover the cons of Quebec’s new homeschooling policy . . .

Updated Policy Has a Few Good Points

Homeschooling families in Quebec often say they are treated like criminals, despite the fact that the choice to educate their children at home is a completely legal one. The Quebec Education Act and the ministry of education offer little guidance. The matter has long been left in the hands of school boards, whose staff have a reputation for bias and a history of involving Youth Protection authorities unnecessarily.

Many Quebec homeschoolers have been driven underground over the years, or have moved their families to escape the jurisdiction of a particularly hostile school board. When the Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport, Quebec’s education ministry, released an updated homeschooling policy earlier this month, homeschooling families hoped for positive change. Instead the new policy confused, angered, and struck fear in most.

Still, there are some positives about the new homeschooling policy. These should be taken into account in any attempts to work towards improved conditions for Quebec homeschoolers.

Read on to discover the pros of Quebec’s new homeschooling policy . . .

***

Sharing this information:
Homeschoolers are great at sharing information others might find useful, and I hope that you will find this information both useful and worthy of sharing! That being said, please note the two articles quoted and linked to in this post are subject to copyright. Sharing their content may be a violation of copyright laws. It may also rob me personally of royalties, and I sincerely hope you wouldn’t do that intentionally.

Associated Content offers a variety of ways to share content written by me and my many talented colleagues. Please look for the “Share” button at the bottom of your screen if you’d like to help your fellow homeschoolers find my articles published there. You can also subscribe to my content feed, to receive updates whenever I publish new articles. And of course, you are always encouraged to comment here or directly at Associated Content. Hearing from readers is most encouraging!

You can also feel free to reproduce this post in its entirety – including this information on sharing the content, and the Creative Commons License below. I hope it will give you a good start on your own critical analysis of Quebec’s homeschooling policies.

***

“Quebec’s New Homeschooling Policy” by Kyla Matton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Based on works at http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/624175/kyla_matton.html.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://rubywriter.wordpress.com/contact/.