To think amount of Roma and Traveller children withdrawn from school underage needs to be cracked down on?

[Jane379]

Two things have made me think about this.

One was the recent thread on Venezuela Fury, Tyson's daughter. Her situation appears slightly different as apparently she did receive tuition online but it made me look into the wider situation.

I know there has been improvement, and that many Roma & travellers families don't do this. But it shouldn't be allowed in the first place. Yes, some who do may homeschool their kids properly, but how many?

There needs to be more regulation of homeschooling.

Why do Roma & traveller kids often slip through the net? Is it sometimes linked to families moving around so children move from one LA to another?

There' nothing wrong with kids preferring to pursue technical options than academic, or living the travelling lifestyle. But school would give them a chance to choose.

Yeah, I mean I'm assuming if this attitude is common then the idea is that wives will explain these things to their husbands, but that's putting rather a burden on them imo. Of course the husbands could use the Internet etc to find books on these things but I don't see what's wrong with biological information being imparted by a parent privately. Periods etc aren't a shameful secret.

IMO This is why a very similar lifestyle is being touted by some on the American/online right. The whole home schooling combined with trad-wife combined with (higher?) education is a waste for women. (Nothing against home schooling. But if women aren't needing to get a full education how are they going to do this adequately.
It's dressed up in a very different aesthetic (usually a lovely house, upper class visuals) but it's fundamentally the same lifestyle that people hate/criticise in Roma people. Which is quite ironic really. Especially because the the people in the UK most enamored by it are also the most likely to complain about the "cultural" issues travellers have. Its a puzzling Venn diagram.

If it was your local school, you may not have had a choice. Especially if home educating wasn't allowed or was more strict.

Just to add to my last post, I don't think that means all men (or even most) in that lifestyle choose it for that reason. Women are often also on board with taking their kids out of school (or are the driving force). It's probably just people doing what they know and what worked for them. Likewise people home schooling, and even people home schooling and doing a bad job aren't trying to set their kids up to be in a bad situation. It's more when it (removing girls from education early) is very aggressively pushed on others/marketed as a better choice that I become suspicious of the motives.
Likewise there are good and bad in all societies and saying children leave school early because the men are deliberately misogynistic feels like too much of a leap. But I think it disadvantages kids not to get a good education. Girls especially in some ways.

@Newsenmum But if the choice is firmly to be a SAHM, what sort of education realistically is required? You don't need further education to be a parent or housewife.

One argument is that it's not men's place to know all the details about what it's like to get periods. What do they need to know about it, beyond that it happens and can feel horrible? Why would a boy need to know anything else, until he's in a relationship, when his girlfriend can fill him in on what he needs to know to be useful to her eg if she gets bad pains or whatever.

That said, I had a lot of shame about periods, even with my husband, for a long time. I'm working really hard at not passing that on to my daughters but I wouldn't dream of talking to any men except my husband about it. Do you tell your brother/ uncle/ dad/ etc when you've got your period?

Odd that you're so jubilant about bringing up pig-ignorant children on purpose.

Good point.

Re women pushing for it, there is a really sad sub reddit called Homeschool Recovery. A lot of people on there seem to have mothers who had mental health problems/were very enmeshed and wanted them home for this reason. The fathers often appear passive figures who were not really driving the decision. This is only one type, there's a lot of variation. In these cases, education ans socialising don't really seem to have been properly carried out. https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeschoolRecovery/&ved=2ahUKEwjw-YqarPiUAxWOU0EAHZwYGXYQFnoECCMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw16zHmjvhk9PMkaWVh3akuX

You do if your own children are also leaving school early and you are supposedly educating them yourself. Roma live a very specific lifestyle. But there is a trend of women who HAVE had good educations saying they regret it, going all trad wife and home schooling their kids. And that might work but then how are their (under-educated because it's apparently not necessary) girl children going to homeschool THEIR kids. It reduces the opportunities and choices for third generations and those after them. And whilst there are probably really nice things about Roma culture they do have less earning potential and are pushed to the edge of society. That's just statistically true. I'm not sure if forcing kids/parents into a radically different system against their will is a good idea though because every time that's been done in the past (usually to indigenous people) it's had appalling consequences. Far worse than the poverty/lack of choices.

Pig ignorant can mean lack of knowledge, or lack of manners... Were you brought up pig ignorant on purpose or by accident?

Children should be given the option to attain qualifications so they can then make the choice freely rather than have no option as they have no paid job skills to offer. Children are not mature enough at 14 to be given the choice to leave education. Thus applies to boys too, who are likewise often withdrawn at 14 in these communities.

It's not rude to think it's stupid someone is actively celebrating deliberately preventing their child from learning basic biology. Sorry not sorry if that hurts your feelings.

Part of the issue though is that the qualifications are seen as almost indoctrinating kids into making the "right" "choice": to stay on at school, go to uni, integrate into the "right" way of life, leave their community and lose their heritage. Choice is never completely free, especially kids choices.

I have a strong interest in Native American tribes and a lot of the time the disaster wasn't the education but the fact they were forced to leave for boarding school, had their long hair cut, beaten for speaking their languages, banned from practising their religion, sexually abused and starved & ill often too... people like Chief Sitting Bull were happy for tribal kids to learn English, what they resisted was what came with it...

Nobody is proposing Roma or traveller kids be forced to attend boarding schools as Native children in US & Canada were (at least afaik, I hope nobody has proposed this!) . I can definitely see how being forced to stop living in the Roma/traveller way would be hugely traumatic but that' not what's being suggested.

It is rude to call someone's kids pig ignorant though. At least in my culture. I get the impression you're not from my culture though.

Homeschooling has also been tacitly used in the UK to fill in gaps where children fall out of mainstream education but there is no alternative provision because of funding cuts (yay austerity). In some cases the parents don't even WANT to be homeschooling their kids but don't have any other realistic choice because they just aren't given any places even though legally the council should. And some might do a great job but some parents just don't have the resources or capabilities to do it so the children just aren't educated. But it's out of sight out of mind for local authorities who are cash strapped anyway and can remove their obligations by steering the parents into homeschooling. So the children get left behind.
It's bad, but it's not really a case of Roma parents being allowed to break the rules/a two tier system.

There definitely needs to generally be a movement for more technical qualifications too as well as uni, which Roma would probably often prefer.

But why is doing GCSEs and A Levels indoctrination? Once you're an adult, you can do as you wish. Plenty of women go to uni and then become SAHMs or work part time as AtchinTan says many Roma women do. And going to uni doesn't stop men then making their living from practical jobs,,either. There's no need to go to uni anyway after you've got your school qualifications. Many don't.

Anyone (male or female) who gets to adulthood not knowing how a period works is pig ignorant.

That's why people put them in videos on the internet and laugh at them.

Why you'd want that for your kid, I don't know.

I know you weren't! Sorry if I implied you thought that. It's more that if parents really don't want their children to go to school/be schooled in a normal way and have that culture of not doing it how do you get them to do it without it becoming a forceful thing that then does damage/is abused by those in authority because not everyone in power uses that power well. Another aspect of I would rather see a system that works with Roma people to push school attendance and actually tries to identify the sticking points/allay fears. But that would likely be portrayed as too wishy-washy woke and cost money too. I bet there are people who would want boarding schools TBH.

I'm not saying GCSEs are indoctrination in themselves. Just that every step further into that system can be seen as at least potentially another step further from the community and culture. The comparison to Native Americans is relevant I think. All very well to encourage education, learning English, etc, but at least back then it was probably nearly impossible to separate that from learning that Native culture was inherently worthless, or at least lesser.

Look at some of the attitudes towards travellers and Roma on this thread (even among well-meaning posters, e.g 'whilst there are probably really nice things about Roma culture'...

It should be fairly clear why some of these families see joining mainstream education as still presenting a risk to how their children might see their own culture.

Uni, in my view, is actually less problematic.

I've raised this a few times on the thread now. If LA's want to tighten up home educating then they need to be doing their part too.

I'm not convinced that they would.

Lol I couldn't get in my local school as all the schools in the postcode area were oversubscribed. Id have risked sending them to a Basildon school rather than there

Am home education is allowed so a moot point

It isn't a moot point on a thread where restricting or even banning home education is part of the discussion.

I’m of the opinion that parents have the right to choose what their children do. If it is part of their culture that boys leave school early to work with their fathers, and girls get married at 16 and spend their lives cleaning and caring for children, they probably don’t need an education beyond the basics. That’s not to say it wouldn’t be better if they were educated. In theory it would give them more opportunities in life, but in practice they probably wouldn’t want to go against their culture.

What would be fascinating to know is..as a general UK population question...
What proportion of individuals with university degrees are currently in paid work requiring a degree-level education?
I would imagine it's also less re women than men due to far less men making the choice to be SAHPS (due to many different factors).