HE movement to educate children at home poses perhaps the greatest threat to state education since education first became compulsory more than a hundred years ago.

Certain guidelines are enshrined in the Education (Scotland) Act 1980. The problem is that these are so vague that they are open to all sorts of different interpretations. Parents wishing to educate their children at home must provide “efficient education”, but this apparently does not have to conform to the same standards that are set in Scottish schools.

Current legislation also decrees that if a child starts school but fails to attend regularly without reasonable excuse the parent is guilty of an offence for which they can be prosecuted. Consent must be obtained from the local authority.

Almost in the same breath, however, Section 35 of the Education (Scotland) Act informs us that this consent must not be unreasonably withheld. For more than a year now we have been waiting for clearer guidelines but so far - nothing. I chair the education of children at home subcommittee in Aberdeenshire - a post I held for some years in the days of the former Grampian Region. It is totally non-political in the conventional sense of the term but it is one of the most difficult and controversial areas.

Our policy is to ask for evidence to be produced: distance learning materials, appropriate textbooks which meet with the approval of officers of the council. Frequently, however, members feel obliged, often against their better judgment, to go along with the parents for fear of the whole issue being brought before a tribunal.

The reasons put forward for wishing to educate one’s children at home are many and varied. Often they stem from a mixture of arrogance and ignorance. Some parents seem to think that they can make a better job of it. They believe it is all a matter of the time that can be devoted to the individual child.

Quite apart from the total disregard for the value of an education that will prepare a child to fit into and ultimately benefit society, these arguments ignore the child’s development. While learning to master the three Rs is obviously of prime concern, so is the ability to get on with other people, to accept the rough with the smooth.

There are, of course, a number of situations when it is in the child’s best interests to be educated at home. The child may be a genuine school phobic, they may be the victim of serious bullying - or they may be too delicate to attend normal school. In such situations one would hope that the authority would be able to make appropriate provision for educating that child at home for as long as is necessary.

In this particular neck of the woods, religious arguments are often advanced; and while I still think that withdrawing one’s child from school is a colossal mistake, I do have some sympathy with the parents who want to protect their offspring from the less pleasant aspects of the world we live in. Presumably, however, at some point in their lives these children will have to make contact with the big, bad world and , in my opinion, the more they know of it the better.

When social inclusion is one of our main educational goals, surely it is high time the powers that be address the issue? Organisations dedicated to home schooling should seriously consider whether, in their efforts to help the parents, they are not doing considerable harm to many of the children. The Executive must grasp the nettle and set up a committee to produce firm guidelines.

James Towers is a member of Aberdeenshire Council, but the views expressed are personal.