The German law on compulsory schooling and the associated ban on homeschooling do not contradict EU laws and the Convention on Human Rights
It all began in 2006, when the elder Romeikes, who were living at that time in the town of Bissingen in Baden-Württemberg, took their three older children out of school with the clear intention of never sending them back. As stated by 37-year-old Uwe Romeike, a music teacher by profession and an evangelical by conviction, the school takes not even a neutral-religious position, but an openly anti-Christian one; textbooks are full of indecent expressions, blasphemies, and curses, and “children learn more about vampires and witches than about God.” In addition, according to Romeike, his children were subjected to obstruction and even violence from peers because of their religious beliefs.
The family decided to educate their children at home. But it was not to be, because in Germany homeschooling is prohibited by law. Education is compulsory in many countries, but in Germany, unlike France, Great Britain, or Austria, it takes the form of compulsory school attendance. From the age of six for everyone. Compulsory schooling was introduced as early as the 18th century in Prussia, and in 1938, under the National Socialists, a law was passed banning homeschooling. Violators are punished with fines or even imprisonment. Parents can teach their children at home, but to do so they must organize a private school and obtain state approval.
Supporters of compulsory schooling believe that in addition to knowledge, children acquire equally important social skills at school. Unsurprisingly, as soon as the Romeikes withdrew their children from school, the police arrived at their home. Uwe Romeike initially did not even want to open the door, but the police were determined and stated that otherwise they would break in by force. He had to give in, and the police took the children to school. The Romeike couple filed a lawsuit but, as expected, lost. This was followed by a series of events that convinced the evangelical couple of the need to leave Germany.
In 2007, the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe upheld a lower court decision in which Baptist parents from Paderborn were deprived of parental rights for refusing to send their children to school, where, among other things, they were taught sex education. “After this decision, we realized that we must leave,” said Uwe Romeike. The family sought help from representatives of the US evangelical lobby from the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) and with their help moved to the United States in 2008, settling in Morristown, Tennessee. And in America, the situation is completely different: there about 2 million children are homeschooled.
American judge Lawrence Berman, who heard the Romeike case, stated that the German authorities “trample the rights of religious minorities, and the Romeike family had every reason to fear religious persecution.” “The German government puts pressure on parents who teach their children at home,” the judge fumed. “This is crazy and stupid, and it contradicts everything we Americans believe. We cannot expect all countries to follow our constitution, although the world would be better if they did. But in this case, fundamental human rights were violated, and no country should do that.”
For his part, German Consul General in the southeastern US Lutz Görgens, in an interview with The Washington Post, hastened to deflect the accusations of American homeschooling lobbyists from HSLDA. Görgens stated that Germany offers parents many alternatives: children can be sent to public, private, or religious schools, to alternative educational institutions such as Waldorf schools or Montessori schools. According to him, compulsory schooling is not because the authorities are trying to ideologically unify everyone and everything, but because it provides a higher level of knowledge.
Nevertheless, despite the many alternatives that Germany offers parents for educating their children, the Romeike case is not the first, though it is certainly not a widespread social phenomenon. Wide resonance was caused by the story of Christian fundamentalists Andre and Frauke R. from Hamburg, who from 2001 for five years fought with the authorities to be allowed to teach their five children at home. The parents cited the Bible and said they were trying to protect their children from the corrupting influence of school. For violating the compulsory school attendance law, they were repeatedly fined, which they did not pay, and it all ended with Andre spending a week in jail in 2006. When he was released, the family hastily packed into a camper van and left Hamburg forever for Austria, where homeschooling is permitted in some cases.
No less famous is the story of Baptist Christian families from Paderborn (North Rhine-Westphalia), ethnic Germans who came from Kazakhstan. In October 2003, a couple forbade their children from attending school because of sex education lessons. According to the parents, in these lessons children are “sexually stimulated,” while the couple themselves considered premarital sex a great sin and intended to raise their children accordingly.
Gradually, six more families joined the "refuseniks": in total, 15 students stopped attending lessons at school. The parents wanted to homeschool them, but the authorities did not allow it: fines of 500 euros each followed for violating the school law. In 2005, five families sent their children to a private religious school in Heidelberg, but one family continued to persist. The local court stripped the father and mother of parental rights and appointed guardians for the children, and in 2007 the Constitutional Court upheld this sentence. But in the end, the mother and children fled to Austria, settled in a village, and continued to teach them herself.
It is also worth recalling the story of the religious fundamentalist Christian community "12 Tribes" from Bavaria: 32 children stopped going to school, following their parents' ban. The reasons are the same: sex education lessons, as well as the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution in school, which community members considered blasphemous. The "12 Tribes" were fined 130 thousand euros, followed by a police operation full of dramatic scenes to forcibly send children to school, and finally, one of the fathers spent two weeks in prison.
And yet, the parties managed to reach a "forced" compromise, according to authorities. Community members were allowed to create a private school for their children, where there would be no sex education lessons or theory of evolution. But teaching at the school had to be carried out under the supervision of the authorities by professional teachers.
These are, of course, not all cases. It is quite likely that something similar will happen somewhere in the coming years. In Germany, many small lobbying groups and civil initiatives have emerged, such as Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit ("Network for Educational Freedom"), and a number of others that defend the right of parents to homeschool their children. According to various sources, currently in Germany, between 500 and 3,000 students are homeschooled. However, nothing indicates that the authorities will back down. Moreover, in the fight against "refuseniks," courts have made a number of decisions that further restrict the rights of homeschooling supporters.
In 2006, the Constitutional Court ruled that parents do not have the right to keep children from attending school for religious reasons. In 2007, as previously mentioned in connection with the case of the Baptists from Paderborn, the Constitutional Court decided that in a number of particularly severe cases, parents who refuse to send their children to school may be stripped of parental rights. And in 2007, the court in Karlsruhe made an even stricter decision, ruling that parents not only do not have the right to keep children from attending school for religious reasons, but also – an important clarification – cannot forbid children from attending sex education lessons, "if the school observes religious neutrality and tolerance." In other words, sex education in Germany also became compulsory for everyone.
It is also noteworthy that in 2006, the European Court of Human Rights confirmed that the German law on compulsory schooling and the associated ban on homeschooling do not contradict EU laws and the Convention on Human Rights. Thus, homeschooling supporters can only study and believe.
Alexei DEMYANOV.
Lenta.ru