Vague Brazilian laws are clashing with parental rights after a state court ruled against homeschooling.
Santa Catarina authorities fined Christian mum and homeschooler, Regiane Cichelero, $20,000 for not enrolling her 12-year-old son in a local school after COVID closures.
State prosecutors also threatened to place him in state “care” if Cichelero refused to comply.
Representing the case, Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADFInt), said, “Cichelero began homeschooling her son in 2020 after schools closed during the COVID-19 pandemic”
The bureaucratic struggle began once schools reopened in 2021.
In a recorded statement published by ADF, a determined Cichelero announced she would be appealing the outcome.
Cichelero said she was “committed to providing her son with the best possible education.
“Homeschooling ensures that she can impart the Christian faith and values to him daily.”
“Values,” Cichelero added, “that are constantly challenged and undermined in Brazil’s public system and culture.”
Responding to the court’s decision, ADF legal counsellor Julio Pohl rightly called it a “disappointing setback for parental rights.
“By deciding that Regiane cannot homeschool her son, the court has not only failed her family, but has undermined protections for all parents across Brazil.”
Leaning on article 26.3 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, he said,
“International human rights law is clear: parents have the right to choose the kind of education their children receive.”
Pohl’s plea is spot on, and surprisingly, the UN tentatively agrees.
Homeschooling Through a Human Rights Lens is a new 45-page 2025 UNESCO review of home education released in September.
In sum, UNESCO cautiously declared home education a human right.
“The right to education can be upheld with respect to homeschooling,” the report’s authors proclaimed.
Quoting Farida Shaheed, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the right to education, UNESCO said that while not a universal right,
“Home-schooling may be considered as part of educational freedom, with families retaining the liberty to ensure the education of their children at home.
“As homeschooling continues to evolve,” they said, “adopting a rights-based approach becomes crucial for balancing freedom of choice with the need for quality education.”
Educational freedom was to be viewed, they explained, as a conditional right because safeguards were necessary.
Conditions on parental rights were determined by whether or not home education violates or weakens universal protections for children, and upholds minimum education standards.
UNESCO then proposed mandatory training for home educators.
Their suggestions included a “minimum qualification threshold, which may be necessary to safeguard children’s right to a quality education.”
This would “ensure parents are equipped to teach.”
For all the good in it, the UNESCO report isn’t a complete green light to home education.
It’s a skittish probe into the “complex world of homeschooling”, necessitated by the massive rise in parents choosing to take personal responsibility for the children’s education.
Notably, the report is kitted out with the same subtle salutes to Marxian-Woke critical theory that appears to be behind the Santa Catarina persecution of Regiane Cichelero.
According to the National Association of Home Educators (NAHE), around 75,000 Brazilian families homeschool.
This is despite the constant threat of Brazil’s vague law being weaponised by the country’s – hostile to homeschooling leftwing bureaucracy.
NAHE said that while bills have been proposed to protect the right to homeschool, there are no currently reliable protections against prosecution.
Education laws that do exist are open to interpretation.
“There is a need for legal certainty for homeschooling in Brazil,” their website explains.
“Some families are facing threats and unfair persecution, while others face lawsuits, despite providing a quality education to their children.”
Further, while not all states in Brazil are anti-homeschool, national rescue and respite for homeschoolers seems unlikely.
Current proposals within the National Education Plan appear to create a loophole that could ban homeschooling entirely.
Primary among the community’s concerns about the 10-year plan is its apparent “equitable” prioritising of public schooling.
No provisions have been made or proposed to protect or provide for home educators.
Another concern is Chapter 3, Article 7’s “universalisation of schooling for the population aged four to seventeen.”
The guideline is ambiguous and, like existing federal law, open to interpretation by an activist bureaucracy, granted a blank cheque by an equally activist judiciary.
Amplifying concerns, parents, and parenting are only mentioned three times in the NEP.
Every mention is in the context of building the public-school parent relationship.
This and the court ruling against Regiane Cichelero provide justifications for why Brazil’s homeschooling community is nervous.
