The Department for Education needs to step away from the “spaghetti junction of funding” for its education recovery programmes and give cash directly to schools, an influential group of MPs has said.
The current funding set-up for the government’s catch-up programmes has at times “been challenging for schools to navigate or use to their best advantage”, the Commons Education Select Committee concludes in a new report published this evening.
The report argues that any future initiatives for the recovery of lost learning should direct funding to schools “using existing mechanisms for identifying disadvantage”, such as pupil premium eligibility and the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index, “to ensure schools in the most disadvantaged regions receive more”.
The MPs’ report also calls on the DfE to commit to publishing statistics on a half-termly basis showing the number of students accessing the National Tutoring Programme (NTP), with a breakdown by region and the numbers of disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs.
The National Tutoring Programme ‘failing disadvantaged pupils’
It adds that if the NTP fails to meet its targets by the spring, the DfE should terminate its contract with Randstad - the company contracted to run the tuition partners and academic mentors pillars of the programme
The committee warns that disadvantaged pupils in poor areas could be up to eight months behind their wealthier peers in some aspects of their education following the pandemic.
Pupils are facing an “epidemic of educational inequality” and a “worsening mental health crisis” because of school closures and national lockdowns during the Covid-19 crisis, the report says.
The report comes after MPs criticised the NTP in a parliamentary debate yesterday. Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman Munira Wilson said that the programme “risks proving a disaster”, while Conservative MP Robert Halfon, who chairs the Commons Education Select Committee, questioned whether the catch-up programme was “fit for purpose”.
Last week, the government was accused of “moving the goalposts” on the NTP, after “confused guidance” over revised targets was sent to school leaders.
Specifically talking about the funding of the government’s catch-up scheme, the report says: “We welcome the funding the government has already committed to help pupils catch up, but we believe the existing funding arrangements for catch-up amount to a spaghetti junction of funding, piling more work on teachers and support staff, who have needed to navigate multiple funding processes to access different streams of funding.”
It adds that the funding schemes should be “simplified and merged into one pot” for schools to access and spend where the recovery need “is greatest”.
The MPs also recommend that Ofsted should check that governance and resource allocation ” extends to catch-up” when it is scrutinising school leadership.
The MPs say it is “not clear” that the NTP will deliver for the students who need it most.
The report adds that the DfE should provide “full transparency” about the operation of the NTP, “including information on how many pupils are benefitting from the programme, and what the characteristics of those pupils are”.
It says the NTP appears to be “failing the most disadvantaged”, with the scheme reaching 100 per cent of its target number of schools in the South West by March 2021 but only reaching 58.8 per cent in the North East.
By December 2021, just 52,000 courses had been started by pupils through the tuition partners pillar - 10 per cent of Randstad’s target for this year.
Tuition partners have complained that Randstad has an online booking platform that is bureaucratic and “dysfunctional” to use.
Schools minister Robin Walker said yesterday that the take-up of catch-up tutoring has been “slow in parts” but the scheme is “on track” to deliver its objectives this year.
But the MPs’ report says: “The department must commit to publishing statistics on a half-termly basis on the number of starts under the National Tutoring Programme with a greater degree of granularity.
“This must include information on the proportion of children accessing the programme on a regional basis, and the data should be published in a way that has regard to disadvantage and special educational needs. This information should also be broken down for each tutoring provider.
“If the National Tutoring Programme fails to meet its targets for the number of pupils receiving tuition, and the proportion of these who are disadvantaged, by spring, the department should terminate its contract with Randstad and re-run the tendering process.”
Speaking about the report, Mr Halfon added: “The government must ensure Randstad shapes up, or boot them out. The catch-up programme must be shown to be reaching disadvantaged pupils, and this data must be published.”
A DfE spokesperson said the NTP “delivery is on track to meet the ambitious target of teaching 2 million courses this academic year”.
They added that the DfE would “continue to work with Randstad to ensure as many children from all backgrounds - in particular, those from disadvantaged backgrounds - across the country can benefit from high-quality tutoring and catch up on lost learning”.
Karen Guthrie, senior programme director of the NTP at Randstad, said it is working with the DfE, schools and tuition partners to “look at how we can improve the programme moving forward to best serve the needs of schools”.
“We receive regular feedback from schools and, as the programme evolves, want to offer the greatest flexibility to tuition partners while removing complexity from the programme - we want to encourage schools to consider all three tuition routes to best match their needs.
“The NTP is helping young people catch up and move forward following the pandemic, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and in the latest data we are encouraged to see an increase in the number of packages delivered. The release of figures on performance is a responsibility of the department.
“Over 300,000 courses have already been delivered in the first term of this academic year, and we continue to work closely with all our stakeholders to ensure we deliver an ambitious and high-quality programme at pace for schools, to help their pupils whose education has been most impacted.”
