It seems that around the world governments are intent on controlling education, including home education and in so-doing they seek to impose a school model of education on home educators. This invariably limits the freedom of home educators unreasonably and violates their right to freedom in education.

The Global Home Education Conference (GHEC) was initiated in 2014 by home education leaders in the USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia and a few other countries. GHEC is a leadership conference for policy makers, researchers, movement leaders, and parents interested in home education.

In 2014, they published the Berlin Convention and in 2016, after the second Global Home Education Conference, which had the theme, Home Education - its a Right, they published the Rio Principles.

"The organizers of the GHEC 2012 presented this historic declaration on November 3, 2012 at the first-ever Global Home Education Conference in Berlin, Germany and adopted it via a board resolution. The Berlin Declaration compiles for the first time an easily accessible record of the numerous international treaties and declarations that recognize the role of parents and the family in education. Through this document, the signatories aim to support home education in becoming globally recognized as the valid form of education that it truly is." ~ The Berlin Declaration, accessed 11/12/2017

In 2016, the Rio Principles were published. "The Rio Principles reflect the existing state of international human rights law in relation to issues of home education. They also affirm binding international legal standards with which all states must comply." ~ The Rio Principles, accessed 11/12/2017

This section includes both of these instruments, video clips from the 2016 GHEC and some good quotes on this topic.

Clips on this topic selected from the 2016 Global Home Education Conference in Rio de Janeiro

Some great quotes on this topic:

"An education monopoly, however, supported by compulsory attendance laws with criminal sanctions, is the hallmark of a totalitarian society."

~ Mike Donelly of HSLDA, - speaking on Home Education, It's a Right, at the Global Home Education Conference 2016

"The result of unchallenged socialism is always the loss of freedom. If the state has laid the necessary legal framework to silence dissenters by presenting legislation as the government protecting people’s rights (in this case “right” to education), then all they need to do is trigger the mechanism at the right moment to begin the enforcement of their desired complete control over the people. Then the government’s logical explanation will be that they are simply applying the law that is on the books." ~ Mike Donnelly, HSLDA, Child Tracking: The Crisis in Bulgaria

"The “right to education” ceases to be a right when it is forced upon someone." ~ Mike Donnelly, HSLDA, Child Tracking: The Crisis in Bulgaria

“The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is to get to the children, to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families, and indoctrinate them in their rulers’ view of the world .” (UK Supreme Court judgment, 2015.) ~ Some ethical objections to the "Named Person Scheme"

"The development of one's personality is, indeed, the essence of personal autonomy and, therefore, everyone must establish for him or herself what the definition of education is.
For that reason, the education that one seeks must be the free choice of the person in whom the right to education is vested. That includes children. If the state places any restrictions on this free choice, the burden is on the state to prove that such restrictions are reasonable and justifiable." ~ Leendert Van Oostrum, South Africa's Outlaw Educators

(This article in included in this course.)

"The law does provide for the state to require that children (or adults) learn specific abilities in which the state has an interest. The state may, therefore, issue minimum requirements for education.

However, when it does, its actions constitute not a fulfillment of the right to education, but restrictions or limitations on the free exercise of the right to education. That means that the state carries the burden of proof that each such minimum requirement is, indeed, reasonable and justifiable." ~ Leendert van Oostrum, South Africa's Outlaw Educators