A committee of Members of Parliament is calling for a national register of home-educated children in England, saying there is an unacceptable level of opaqueness surrounding the issue.
The Commons Education Committee says it is important to get a grip on the number in home education.
It says more data must be collected to ensure all children out of school get a suitable education.
Home educators say this will increase families’ lack of trust in the system.
The MPs’ report – Strengthening Home Education – says the government does not collect national figures for how many children are electively home-educated and parents do not have to register the fact with councils.
Committee chair, Conservative MP Robert Halfon, said it was “frankly astonishing” that the government was only able to make a “best guess” over the standard of education children schooled at home were receiving.
A research carried out by the BBC revealed that the number of children registering for home education in the UK rose by 75% in the first eight months of the current school year.
It found more than 40,000 pupils were formally taken out of school in the UK between September 2020 and April 2021, compared with an average of 23,000 over the previous two years.
The figures are based on Freedom of Information responses from 153 of the 205 county councils and unitary authorities in Great Britain, and all of Northern Ireland.
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