The government has been urged to approve more high-quality accredited tuition partners to ensure sufficient capacity on which schools can draw upon for the National Tutoring Programme (NTP).
The warning from youth charity Impetus follows the Department for Education (DfE) closing the loophole that meant schools could use potentially sub-standard tuition using NTP funding.
They can now only use accredited tuition partners who have met a rigorous set of quality standards.
Up to the end of the academic year, there were three pillars to the NTP. One allowed schools to sort tutoring themselves - known as school-led – the second option was for them to hire academic mentors and the third gave them permission to use external tuition partners.
However, it’s all change for 2022-23. While the entire pot of £349 million will go directly to schools from September, they will have to check the provider they plan to use is on the DfE’s Find a Tuition Partner service, which the government says will undergo “rigorous” quality control checks.
The rule will only apply to external organisations however, leaving schools free to hire any individual tutors they wish.
Commenting on the new guidance, Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research at Impetus, said: Tutoring is one of the best-evidenced interventions for supporting young people to make accelerated progress but, two years on, quality tutoring still isn’t available to every school that needs it.
“The National Tutoring Programme has the chance to transform the lives of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. But without better data, and the ability to attract more, higher quality tutors, there is a real risk that this potential will never be met.”
The latest figures published by the DfE in July showed that the majority of schools who adopted the NTP chose the school-led tutoring route.
Of the 1,781,946 courses started this academic year, 80%, or 1,433,793 were through school-led tutoring. Meanwhile, 11%, or 200,835 were via NTP tuition partners, despite them initially being proffered as the main focus of the programme.
Lucy Alexandra Spencer, Founder and Managing Director Education Boutique had this to say:
”The DfE’s most recent announcement just adds another layer of obstructions to pupils benefiting from high quality, in-person tutoring courses. As well as the impact on pupils, the announcement will cause upheaval for many senior leaders who will have to re-think their plans. We are currently asking the DfE to consider the implications of their decisions around the NTP and allow schools to work with existing SLTG partners until the new applications have opened.”
Find out more about how Education Boutique can help you to utilise the school-led tutoring grant.
