Responding to the government’s press release in relation to the
latest National Tutoring Programme figures, Geoff Barton, General
Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:
“The Department for Education’s claim that they will continue to
support schools to embed tutoring into the long-term just does
not tally with reality. The NTP is fundamentally flawed as it is
only partially subsidised and schools have to fund the remainder
of the cost out of budgets that are already stretched beyond
breaking point. The government subsidy covers only 60% of the
cost this academic year, 25% next academic year, and disappears
altogether after that. This will only serve to limit access with
many schools likely to cut or completely abandon NTP provision.
If the government’s intention really is to embed tutoring into
the school system, this is a bizarre way of going about it.
“To add insult to injury, the DfE has today published school-level
statistics showing participation in the National Tutoring
Programme during the 2021/22 academic year. This de facto league
table, that we have repeatedly warned them against publishing,
tells us little more than what schools have been able to afford.
It certainly should not be used as major indicator of a school’s
appetite to make use of the tutoring scheme. If the government
was serious about widening participation in the NTP, they would
allow schools to access the subsided funding without the
pre-requisite of topping this up from their own budgets. Rather
than take this simple, cost-free step, they have instead chosen
to publish this meaningless set of statistics.
“As the government’s flagship education recovery policy following
the pandemic, this is just not good enough. Their own education
recovery commissioner resigned because the funding allocated for
education recovery was so low. Rather than taking on board this
criticism, increasing the level of funding and making this more
accessible, the government has chosen to deflect from their
shortcomings by attempting to put the blame on schools. Right
from the start, the NTP has been a textbook lesson in how to take
a good idea and undermine it through bureaucracy and
inflexibility. The publication of these statistics is just the
latest example and suggests the DfE’s priorities are in
completely the wrong place.”
