User:John Cummings/Articles/National Tutoring Programme

National Tutoring Programme is the UK governments flagship national tutoring programme, it is run by private companies. It is part of the governments £1.7bn catch-up fund announced in 2020 to try to address learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Use of private companies to deliver tuition
The government has employed private companies to deliver the tuition (including at least one which uses children as tutors). The companies charge the government between £72 and £84 per hour, with tutors receiving a maximum of £15 per hour. Analysis showed that the scheme would be more effective if the schools received the money directly.

Use of children as tutors
Until March 2021 the scheme used Sri Lankan children as tutors who were paid as little as £1.57 an hour, the companies hiring the children received between £72 and £84 per hour.

"“First of all there’s a question about whether it’s ethical to be paying £1.57 to £3.07 an hour, outsourcing in this way. It also raises a bigger issue about why this money is being paid to the private sector whose objective in life must be to make a profit.”"

Enrollment
There is a wide variation in enrollment in the scheme across the UK. The NTP target is to reach 6,000 schools across the nine UK regions. The scheme has reached 100% of its target number of schools enrolled in the south-west of England, 96.1% in the south-east, but only 59.3% in the north-west, 58.8% in the north-east, and 58.9% in Yorkshire and the Humber.