The second year of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP), now run by Randstad, has come in for major criticism recently, with targets missed across the board and reports of poor operational effectiveness.
The stakes are high.
If ministers get it right, the NTP represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to democratise access to tutoring for disadvantaged pupils; if it fails to deliver, schools will move on, the money will fade away and tutoring will once again be the preserve of the better-off.
For over a decade, the Sutton Trust, where I am chief executive, has called for tutoring to be opened up to those from poorer homes.
We were one of the charities that, in the early days of the pandemic, developed the idea of a national programme to harness small group tutoring to help schools address learning loss.
We did this because we believed in the power of tutoring to close the attainment gap - a gap that has only widened over the course of the pandemic.
The power of tutoring
The most robust evidence shows that high-quality tutoring can lead to five months’ additional progress for children over a single year, and we know it is hugely popular among parents, who directly see the impact it has on their children.
We never thought the NTP would be a silver bullet that would solve all the problems of the system - but it was tangible, scalable and there was a huge untapped resource of professional tutors, trained volunteers, undergraduates and others who could be mobilised for the national effort.
Setting up the NTP during the upheaval of Covid was doubtlessly tough, but in year one it hit its targets, reaching over 300,000 children from a standing start.
But in year two, it faces an uphill battle, at just 15 per cent of the way towards its targets as we approach the halfway mark in the school year.
Faced with such headlines, the government might be sorely tempted to quietly abandon the NTP and move away from a once flagship policy.
But - whatever the current delivery challenges - we should be in no doubt that a tutoring free-for-all would be a retrograde step.
We must persist
It would leave unaddressed the major impetus for the creation of the NTP in the first place: to ensure the highest quality provision reaches the poorest young people, including in parts of the country that are priorities for “levelling up”.
The Sutton Trust’s own research has found that young people in London are more than twice as likely to have benefited from tutoring than pupils in the North.
The areas of the country that stand to benefit most from tutoring - and that have been hardest hit by Covid - are often the ones where there simply has not been enough supply.
When the Bradford Opportunity Area tried to source high-quality tutors for its local children, for example, it reportedly struggled to find enough.
A harder path forward - but one that is more likely to have an impact in the short term and leave a positive legacy in the system - would be to reboot the NTP so that it really delivers for social mobility.
That means concentrating on the things that matter - quality, reach and school engagement - while not suffocating schools in bureaucracy. It needs a simple offer of programmes with local flexibility that are complementary to great classroom teaching.
A refocussed NTP could be the champion of tutoring to the poorest communities, encouraging effective organisations to expand into these areas and providing schools with advice and support to take up provision that genuinely meets their needs.
It should be the guardian of quality: ensuring all tutoring meets a minimum standard - but continually pushing up the bar and driving for excellence.
Subsidies should mirror the moral mission behind the NTP’s inception, with more money available to schools in the hardest to reach areas and which use providers with the most effective, evidence-led offer.
Subsidy levels for schools, which are due to fall substantially next year and beyond, should be maintained at 75 per cent for at least the next two years, to recognise the ongoing impact of Covid on learning.
At least part of this could be funded by a reallocation of the likely underspend in year two, but any additional money needed would be a way of protecting and enhancing the government’s already considerable investment in tutoring over the last 18 months.
Far better than writing it off and losing what progress has been made.
Helping hard-pressed schools
Crucially, a rebooted NTP, with a clear social purpose, could win the hearts and minds of a sceptical teaching profession.
The evidence is clear that tutoring works best when it is delivered by trained individuals and connected back to the classroom.
Tutoring needs to be seen as a valuable extra capacity for hard-pressed schools, especially in the wake of Covid, not as a distraction or a bolt on to core learning.
Back in 2020, England was seen as an international trailblazer with its focus on an ambitious, system-wide programme of tutoring to address lost learning. Australia followed suit, and the USA and Netherlands have all looked to expand tutoring in state schools.
If we are serious about addressing educational inequality, we do not have a choice but to harness the power of what is now a £2 billion industry here in the UK.
Ignoring its exponential rise will only lead to attainment gaps widening still further in the future.
The secretary of state came into Department for Education with a reputation for strong delivery of the vaccine rollout.
Successful delivery of the NTP will require all those skills - and, with a clear vision for year three, the NTP could still be a game-changer - it remains one of the best chances for helping poorer children catch up and thrive in the years ahead.
James Turner is CEO of the Sutton Trust
