Big rise in home education

Soaring numbers of parents are teaching their children at home because they are not happy with the quality of state education, according to government research.

The study said at least 16,000 children in England may now be educated at home, which would be a three-fold increase since 1999. Many parents were worried about poor discipline in state schools, the study by York Consulting for the Department for Education and Skills said.

"Some of the parents interviewed felt that standards of education had declined," the report said. "This, coupled with a view that the current education system is overly bureaucratic, inflexible and assessment-driven, prompted some parents to home-educate."

The researchers found that the majority of parents who took their children out of school were white British, and that children tended to be removed between finishing primary and starting secondary school.