The government should renew funding for its flagship tutoring programme to help children who have fallen behind, education leaders have urged.
Funding for the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) - which aims to help pupils in England recover learning missed because of Covid-19 disruption - is expected to end this academic year.
But failing to embed tutoring as a core part of the future education system would be a “national travesty”, a social mobility expert has said.
The warning comes as an analysis by consultancy Public First, which looks at data from the NTP in the academic years 2021-22 and 2022-23, predicts the scheme will produce substantial economic returns.
Grade improvements
The Public First study estimates that the scheme will lead to, or has already led to, a total of 390,000 grade improvements in English and maths across the two years of the scheme it analysed.
Analysis found that for every £1 million spent on the NTP, more than 580 students experienced an improvement in their grades. This was particularly pronounced for English tuition.
The additional discounted lifetime earnings resulting from tuition provided in 2021-22 and 2022-23 is estimated at £4.34 billion, according to the report.
A group of educationalists has called on the government to continue to invest in the NTP next year and beyond.
Alun Francis, chair of the Social Mobility Commission, said: “The findings of this report into the economic impact of tutoring, and the benefits it brings to young people in terms of achievement and confidence, are very encouraging.
“It suggests that, if targeted in the right way, tutoring can make a significant contribution to equalising opportunity and improving outcomes.
“We need long-term, consistent approaches built on interventions which have a strong evidence base and, on this basis, would urge the government to maintain its commitment to funding this provision.”
‘National travesty’
Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, said: “This report confirms that high-quality tutoring is one of the most cost-effective approaches we have at our disposal in levelling the education playing field.
“It will be a national travesty if we fail to embed tutoring as a core strand of our future education system.”
NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said many schools will be unable to access tuition as the NTP subsidies come to an end.
“It is important that if the government is to continue with the scheme, it puts its full faith in it, and invests more than it has done, to allow all schools and pupils access,” he said.
“Schools should also be entrusted to determine how best to use funding for their pupils rather than being constrained by the government’s bureaucratic and arbitrary rules.”
Extending funding
Dame Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, also called for the future of tuition to be secured.
Under the NTP scheme, funding is provided directly to schools so they can source their own tutors, either externally or through their own staff, as part of the school-led tutoring route.
Schools can also use subsidised funding to access tuition from an approved list of organisations, known as tuition partners, or they can use it to hire full-time, in-house academic mentors.
Susannah Hardyman, chief executive of Action Tutoring, said the spring Budget would be a good time for the government to commit to extending tutoring.
The Department for Education (DfE) subsidised 75 per cent of the costs schools incurred for delivering the scheme in 2021-22, and this was reduced to 60 per cent in 2022-23 and 50 per cent this academic year.
The DfE has previously said the 2023-24 academic year is the fourth and final year of the NTP.
The department has been contacted for comment.
