And why are they so secretive?
The week, the Education Select Committee published this letter from the AEHEP which they wrote after the second oral evidence hearing of the Inquiry into Home Education. This submission has prompted a load of questions about who the AEHEP are and what their agenda is?
The AEHEP stands for the Association of Elective Home Education Professionals - and that is about the total of the information that is publicly available. They have no website, no email address, no phone number nor physical address. They do not seem to be listed with Companies House, they are not listed on this Wiki page, nor are they on this list on the government's website. Yet, since they formed in 2014/5 (depending on where you read), they have been in regular contact with the government, trying to influence various laws, bills and inquiries. And though I said people have been questioning their agenda in the first paragraph, it is actually pretty clear that they want to bring in compulsory registration for home educators, and give even more power to Local Authorities, which may potentially lead to a forced curriculum on home educated children too. They regularly conflate education and welfare, and in the recent submission to the government, have listed national home education groups Education Otherwise and Educational Freedom alongside a neo-Nazi, far right, nationalist group. Accidental? I'm not convinced, tbh.
Surely it's not right for a group to try and influence the government that is so hidden?
(Ok, I know there are various groups that influence those in power or have hidden power, but hey - even the Freemasons have an online presence!)
Dave Harvey (Hampshire) is currently the Chair, though that may be shared with Jenny Dodd (Staffordshire), and Anna Shaw (Hertfordshire) has said on her LinkedIn Profile that she's a founding member of the AEHEP. The second link below lists only 14 members of the AEHEP, each of them LA/Council workers; yet I have been informed that over the past few years, the AEHEP has members in most LAs around the country.
In looking up information about them I have found the following links. I have not yet been able to go through them with a fine toothed comb yet, but hopefully these will start the conversation along.
https://daretoknowblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/association-of-elective-home-education.html
http://edyourself.org/articles/LAletters.php
https://edyourself.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/aehep-committee-members/
http://edyourself.org/search/?q=AEHEP
It's a stealth attack and yes when I 'heard' of AEHEP yesterday I went on the search and could not find anything. Who are they?
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