An organisation representing roughly 40,000 UK professional tutors is calling for a public inquiry into the government’s flagship Covid catch-up tutoring scheme.

The Tutors’ Association (TTA) - whose application on behalf of a consortium of providers to deliver subsidised sessions as part of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) - was rejected during the selection process, is now calling for the programme to be investigated.

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The TTA claims that reports from last week of under-18s in Sri Lanka being employed to tutor children in England as part of the NTP represent the “tip of an iceberg” when it comes to problems with the scheme.

The association also claims advice that it offered to the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), which is leading the programme alongside four other organisations, was “almost entirely ignored”.

And it has made allegations about the way the selection process was held.

A DfE spokesperson said: “The National Tutoring Programme was set up to make sure that students who have suffered the most as a result of the pandemic can have high-quality personal or small-group tuition that can boost their attainment by up to three to five months, no matter where in the country they live or their background.

“It has now enrolled over 150,000 students across almost 5,000 schools, and continues to work to its target of 250,000 students enrolled this academic year. Feedback from schools involved in the programme has been overwhelmingly positive, and all tutoring organisations were assessed against stringent standards before being accepted as partners to the programme.”

The NTP said it could not comment.

The EEF has been approached for comment.

Last week the DfE said under-18s would no longer be used as NTP tutors and that it would now review the role of overseas-based tutors in the coming year of the programme.