Home Education: Visions into Practice?

Home Education has been at the centre of many socio political debates in Ireland. Such debates appear to have lost sight of the fact that under The Constitution the parent is the primary educator. The aim of this paper is to generate discussion and debate on the concept of home education as a learning environment for early years. It is the contention of the author that parents can feel unsupported and disempowered when educating their children outside of the system or the school model as we know it. With increasing numbers of parents choosing home education in Ireland more inclusiveness needs to be attained where models of collaboration and communication between social, educational, welfare systems and parents need to be established.