Now we’re talking =) Let me try to answer your criticism and questioning of homeschooling.
I agree that a strictly religious home might be destructive for a child, if they don’t get the opportunity to question, reason and debate the beliefs of the family. On the other hand - a home full of drug abuse, alcoholism and other things more connected to “atheism” than religion tend to be way more destructive. Therefore I don’t belive we can say that a christian education is by default negative.
Well - to comfort us all, I can assure that ecery child in Maranata gets more than the needed portion of critical thinking, debates and reasoning. Many have left the movement already as early teenagers, because they didn’t find the conviction of the church to be their own. So I guess they’re not totally apathic or without possibility to reason with their own mind.
But - even though some have left; I have heard very little or no criticism from these persons concerning the home school.

Who can be a better educationalist than the parents? Today, the problem of unlicenced teachers is not based upon their lack of academic knowledge, but the pedagogic skills. And I belive that every sound parent know how to threat and teach their own child. And - what they lack in academic knowledge, they meet up with personal engagement and time.

The reason Maranata doesn’t want to start a school, is partly the curriculum, but also partly their negative attitude towards government subsidies. But, let it be clear, that to 99,9%, the education is based upon the national curriculum. The difference is merely that in the homeschooling adds some lessons in bible knowledge and discussions on christian themes.

Of course home schooling should be allowed for every parent - satanist, anarchist or vegetarian. UN says that a parent can choose to educate their child at home, based upon religious or philosophical view. What the government and the state needs to do, is control if the educanional level is in accordance with the plan. On what foundation the parents wants to keep their children at home, is their own business. As long as the kids do well, and are tought all the things they need to know to make sensible reasoning about the questions of this time - I as a christian don’t have a problem with this multi-cultural expression.

I am questioning how a “school” that admittedly does not follow the national curriculum (the reason Maranata doesn’t want to start their own school is that they don’t want to follow the curriculum) can produce students with the knowledge and skills needed for today’s job market or for higher education. And with today’s debate on how bad it is with unlicensed (obehöriga) teachers: why are we allowing some kids be educated by people without teaching credentials?

I am also wondering why religious beliefs should be grounds for home schooling. Where do we draw the line? Some religions (the big ones with lots of followers) are given a free pass, but what if someone said that they wanted to home school because they were satanists, should they be able to do so? And if we speak about ideology: what about Marxists? Nazis? Should they be allowed to home school because their belies are at odds with those of our state and society? Parents can have lots of different beliefs and ideologies, but we (rightly) don’t allow them to pull their kids out of school based on those. Why should (some) religions be treated differently?

Homeschooling is not illegal. It is supported by the Swedish law, and by UN’s conventions. The UN convention says clearly that religion IS a valid ground for homeschooling. Sweden reserved against this part of the convention for a time - but finally accepted it, with the motivation: “Under hänvisning till att dagens skolundervisning skall vara objektiv och eleverna således inte tvingas bevistas en undervisning som strider mot föräldrarnas övertygelse samt till att gällande skollag ger möjlighet att fullgöra skolplikten genom fristående skolor eller genom hemundervisning, föreslår kommittén att den svenska reservationen återkallas” (Aprox. “Because the education of today should be objective and the pupil therefore not forced to visit an education that is in conflict with the conviction of the parents, ant that the school law give the possibility to fullfill the school duty by entering free schools ore homeschooling, the comitee proposes that the swedish reservation is withdrawn)

Excuse my bad english. I entered homeschool for nine years - and never had any problem entering high school. I got good grades, and have never been unemployed…

And it’s Tage - not Ture.

//Paulus Eliasson