AQW 31465/22-27

Mrs Michelle Guy
Alliance Party
Lagan Valley

Tabled Date: 17/09/2025
Answered On Date: 02/10/2025
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Education to detail any plans he has to update legislation requiring all children that are home educated to be registered with (i) the Education Authority; and (ii) his Department.

Answer:

The legislative position in Northern Ireland is that parents are responsible for ensuring their child receives an education, at school or otherwise. Parents may therefore choose to educate their children at home rather than register them at a school and they may choose to deregister their child from school with the intention of educating them at home.

Whilst the Education Authority (EA) is aware of children who have attended and subsequently been deregistered from a school, there is no duty on parents who have never registered their child at a school to inform the Department of Education (DE) or the EA if they have chosen to educate their children at home. Thus, there is no complete record of children being electively home educated in Northern Ireland; this is also the case in other jurisdictions.

Work is underway to examine processes and policies in other jurisdictions and to monitor any changes to legislation regarding the registration of home-educated children.