Catch-up tutoring is facing an “existential threat” with the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) set to end after this academic year, a Department for Education adviser has warned.
The NTP was designed to last four years to help children catch up on learning lost during the pandemic - with 2023-24 as its final year. The government has made no commitments to continue funding tuition beyond this point.
But the DfE faces calls to invest in tuition in the longer term, as the disadvantage gap has reached its widest point in over a decade.
Nick Brook, chief executive officer of Speakers for Schools and chair of the DfE Strategic Tutoring Advisory Group, told Tes: “Beyond this year, tutoring is facing an existential threat.
“Every indicator shows that the volume of tutoring will plummet in schools if funding is withdrawn. Just as we’re starting to see tangible benefits of this programme, there is a very real possibility that government will decline to fund it in future years.
“There will always be competing demands on Treasury investment. But there’s an opportunity in the coming weeks, through the Autumn Statement, for government to signal a long-term commitment to tutoring and provide schools with the confidence they need to plan ahead.”
He added: “It is abundantly clear that the government’s tutoring revolution will grind to a halt before the general election without long-term investment.”
Tutoring ‘should be targeted at disadvantaged’
An evaluation of the second year of the NTP by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) last week found that when tutoring was school-led, it helped pupils make up to one month’s additional progress in English and maths. No effect was found for tuition by partners or academic mentors.
Take-up of the NTP had increased substantially from the second year to the third. However, in its final year, only 50 per cent of the costs are subsidised by the DfE.
This has led to fears that schools and trusts will not be able to continue with tuition. Only 58 per cent of academy trusts said they were planning to continue with the NTP this year when asked by the Confederation of School Trusts (CST).
The NFER evaluation only detected small improvements in progress, which researchers attributed partly to the lack of data available.
One of the report’s main recommendations was that in future it may be beneficial to introduce targets for giving tutoring to disadvantaged pupils.
Mr Brook said that schools need to understand which are the most effective tutoring routes, to help the programme have the most impact in the future.
“The flexibility afforded to school-led tutoring has meant a thousand flowers bloomed,” he said. “And whilst, overall, the evidence suggests that there is more good than ineffective practice, we simply do not yet know enough about what works, and, for that matter, what doesn’t.”
He pointed out that more than 40 million hours of tutoring have been delivered over three years. “Surely after 40 million hours of activity, we should collectively know a lot more than we currently do about what works, in aspects such as qualifications of tutors, dosage and frequency of sessions, and group size?” he said.
Susannah Hardyman, CEO of NTP provider Action Tutoring, previously told Tes that schools needed clarity on the NTP’s future in order to commit to the scheme.
Labour has not made a commitment to tutoring, but shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said she would like to turn around the government’s “tutoring disaster” and look at options for catch-up.
The Liberal Democrats have proposed a £390 million investment in tutoring as part of their plans for education.
The DfE has been contacted for comment.
