EDITORIAL - Respect the rights of the Holnesses

The Holnesses would have been naive not to have anticipated a public debate once it emerged that they had opted, which is their right, to homeschool their two sons temporarily.

At the time of the decision, Mr Andrew Holness, now the prime minister, was, and still is, the education minister, and, therefore, as he puts it, "the moral leader of the education system".

It is in that context that, as a correspondent to this newspaper framed the case, the prime minister's critics have questioned why they should entrust their children to a school system that Mr Holness did not believe was 'good enough' for his own children. This assessment has poignancy in the context of an education system that is deemed to be underperforming.

Of course, Mr Holness is not the only political leader whose decision for the education of his or her children has caused a public furore.

For instance, last year, when Ms Diane Abbott, who has Jamaican parents, was in the race for the leadership of Britain's Labour Party, she, an advocate on the left of the party, was branded a hypocrite for sending her son to a £10,000-a-year private school where he earned an international baccalaureate.

Ironically, years earlier, Ms Abbott had criticised her party leader and then British prime minister, Tony Blair, and a Cabinet colleague, Harriet Harman, for sending their children to so-called selective schools, where entry was, in part, determined by interviews of the parents of prospective students. This was deemed a kind of elitism.

Ms Abbott defended her own decision on the grounds that she was fearful that had she sent her son to a different kind of school, as a black child in the United Kingdom, he would be lost in the world of gangs. She did what she thought was in the best interest of her son.

That is precisely the point. The Holnesses are doing what, in their view, is in the best interest of their children, although Mrs Holness may not have articulated their position with the clarity and, perhaps, forthrightness that, given her husband's position, such a potentially sensitive issue deserves.

Mr Holness has explained that prior to the homeschooling decision, his children were enrolled in a private preparatory school. One boy, the prime minister explained, "was not focused and attentive in his class and was falling behind". He apparently did not respond well to the school-based interventions.

Parents have final say

While we appreciate the position of persons who have genuine reservations about the symbolic impact of the action by the Holnesses, we believe that the decisions of parents about how they educate their children, except in very limited circumstances, are private matters. In that regard, we applaud the fact that the Opposition, in the form of Dr Peter Phillips and Mr Ronald Thwaites, has not sought to crassly exploit the issue for political gain with an election on the horizon.

But Mr Holness, especially wearing his hat as "the moral leader" of the country's education system, cannot be oblivious to those who genuinely raise concerns. All criticism does not have a basis in partisan politics.

It is, therefore, Mr Holness' obligation, as a matter of urgency, to deliver an education system of assured quality, so that parents, of whatever circumstance, do not believe that their children are being short-changed.