The firm behind the delivery of the government’s flagship tutoring catch-up programme, Randstad, is rebidding to be part of the scheme next year, despite months of criticism and falling short of its current targets, Tes understands.
The Dutch firm is understood to have put itself forward to run the recruitment and deployment of academic mentors on the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) next year, after the government opted to end its existing contract, according to sources close to the bidding process.
The firm previously said it would rebid to be involved in the NTP next year if in the “best interests” of schools.
The news comes as data, released today, shows that there have been 1,197,332 starts on the NTP this academic year, though 913,388 of these have been through the school-led tutoring arm of the programme.
Just 165,230 starts have been made under the tuition partners strand and 118,714 under the academic mentor strand, both of which are operated by Randstad.
Previous targets suggested that 524,000 pupils should access subsidised tutoring sessions and 252,000 pupils supported by academic mentors by the end of this academic year.
The new data shows that 66.8 per cent of schools have engaged with the NTP this academic year - an increase of 6.9 percentage points over the past two months.
Schools not ‘convinced’ by NTP
But teaching unions have said the data shows schools are not “convinced” by the programme, despite being threatened to “name and shame” those that don’t use it.
James Bowen, director of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union, said the figures showed that a “significant proportion” of schools were not yet convinced that the NTP would have a “positive impact” on their pupils.
He said: “School leaders rightly have a high bar for any new interventions they introduce into their schools and have to feel certain that they will make a difference.
“The decision to give schools greater freedoms to run the tutoring themselves was a step in the right direction, but it is clear that the government has work to do if it is to convince more schools about the merits of its flagship recovery programme.
“That work should involve proper engagement with the sector and certainly not tactics designed to simply pressurise schools into using it.”
There have also been concerns among schools about how accurate the Department for Education’s data is on the tutoring programme’s take-up.
Take-up data is based on the educational setting status form, which not all schools complete.
The DfE has repeatedly emailed school leaders in recent weeks asking them to fill it in, but only around a third have, according to the latest stats.
The DfE estimates take-up based on this sample but adds: “We assume that non-responding schools resemble responding schools and do not adjust for non-response bias”.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said that this meant that the figures were a “useful snapshot” but that “there can be no certainty the figures are accurate”.
Earlier this year, the DfE announced that £349 million of tutoring cash would go directly to schools from the next academic year in a bid to “simplify” the NTP system.
It then launched a bid to find up to three separate providers to support the running of the programme over the next two years - a £7,987,500 contract for a provider to recruit and deploy academic mentors, £7,423,500 to train tutors and academic mentors, and £2,481,600 to recruit quality-assured tuition partners.
It is understood Randstad is in the running to recruit and deploy academic mentors.
The bids closed on Monday this week.
Randstad said it would not comment on the bidding process when approached by Tes this afternoon.
The Department for Education has been approached for comment.
