Today I am researching the court cases over the past 15-20 years with regard to the child's right to education in the Netherlands. Most cases are very interesting and pose hard questions about who decides over children's education; the local government, the school, the parents, the state, children?
During this research I came across this highly interesting and heartbreaking case. It is a case of a young boy whose parents are deeply religious "Seventh Day Adventists". The boy has walked away from home several times, due to different conflicts with his parents. A most important point here is the fact that the boy is homeschooled by his parents, but he argues that the quality of this education is insufficient (he is only schooled 1,5h per day - which is normal in homeschooling).
When The boy walked away for the third time, he spent 11 days in a self-built improvised tent in a park until the police brought him to youth services. He lives in a young people's home now. At the time of the court case, the boy had been accepted at the local gymnasium (highest level of high school education in the Netherlands).
The great thing about this case is that, in contradiction to many other cases on the right to education, here the boy himself has been heard. We could even say that the position of the child was the central issue to the case. Personally, my heart broke when I read the boys' statement, where he stated that he wanted to go to a regular school, and in addition, that he disliked that his parents refused to hand over his personal stuff such as clothes, bank card and schoolbooks, and also that he 'feels really bad about that his parents have let his pets die'.
