Access to free education is a fundamental right to every child in the UK. Against Borders for Children (ABC) believes that all children should feel safe and secure at school, our Education system should ensure that no child is systematically marked as “different” or unwelcome. Our convictions led us to start this campaign and launch a legal challenge against the Department for Education’s (DfE) decision to collect nationality and country of birth data for all children in state funded education in England since 2016.
We have heard the stories of division, ethnic ascribing and passport checks that have taken place since this policy was introduced in September 2016. Parents, schools, unions and many sections of civil society have joined us to urge the government to reconsider. We now know that in January 2017 the Department for Education failed to obtain nationality data for a quarter of all pupils in England – around 2 million children! Through our campaigning we have prevented nationality data from being shared for immigration purposes, but that concession could be changed at any time. This is why the legal challenge is of strategic importance to the campaign.
On January 2nd, our solicitors at Liberty formally put our High Court case to the Department for Education. We now await DfE’s response before court hearings start later this year. We will keep you posted on progress and expected key dates.
ABC would not have been able to submit such a strong case without the incredible support we’ve received from communities, associations and individuals across the UK. So once again thanks to everyone who shared and donated our crowdfunder – in impressive timing we hit our target of £12,000 which we believe will cover our legal liabilities for our High Court case this year.
Please remember to keep sharing #BoycottSchoolCensus to inform parents, carers, and guardians that they have the legal right to stop DfE from collecting their child’s nationality status and country of birth. The next census day is Thursday 18th January and more details on how to refuse, retract and resist here.