Commenting on the Department for Education press release stating
that two million courses have been started through the National
Tutoring Programme, Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the
Association of School and College Leaders, said:
“The government has been engaged in a campaign to pressurise
schools into using the National Tutoring Programme which has
involved besieging them with telephone calls and the threat of a
league table of schools’ take-up of the programme which is due to
be published in the autumn.
“We are therefore not surprised to see an increase in uptake
since May.
“This has largely been a face-saving exercise by the government
following the chaos which has dogged the programme since it was
launched caused by over-complexity and problems in delivering the
tuition partners element of the scheme.
“The government has now launched a simplified version of the
programme in which all funding goes directly to schools –
something it should have done in the first place – and they then
choose the tutoring route which best suits their needs.
“But it is important to understand that this is only partially
subsidised and that the programme represents a considerable cost
to schools to deliver from budgets that are under extreme
pressure.
“Next academic year the subsidy will be only 60% meaning that
schools have to find the remaining 40% from other budgets which
already have many calls upon them.
“There is good evidence that tutoring in small groups can be of
benefit but it should be an option that is available rather than
an exercise in backdoor compulsion.
“School leaders are best placed to make the judgement call on
what support best meets the needs of their students – not
politicians in Westminster.”
