To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many National Tutoring Programme organisations are based in the North East; and what the minimum qualification required is for offering and delivering the National Tutoring Programme.
Answered on
13 April 2021
The National Tutoring Programme (NTP) is a key part of the Government’s COVID-19 catch up response and provides additional, targeted tuition support to disadvantaged children and young people who have been hardest hit from disruption to their education as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. Since its launch, over 155,000 pupils and more than 4,000 schools have enrolled for tuition support with the NTP Tuition Partners.
The programme ensures that additional support has been allocated to regions with the largest numbers of disadvantaged pupils and in regions where access to tutoring has historically been lower. The Tuition Partners offer a good blend of national and regional providers that can offer support to schools across all regions in England.
Included in the 33 approved Tuition Partners, there are 6 regional providers that deliver tuition in the north east of England, there are a further 16 which are delivering nationally. More information on our approved tuition partners can be found here: https://d3vgwsfdkj1ams.cloudfront.net/documents/NTP-Guide-to-approved-Tution-Partners-2020-21_2020-11-27-162657_1.pdf?mtime=20201207170317&focal=none.
High quality tuition is one of the fundamental principles of the NTP, and the Department has worked closely with our delivery partners to ensure that this can be delivered across both pillars of the NTP.
The Department recognises that the education and experience of tutors is key to the delivery of quality tuition. Whilst each Tuition Partner is responsible for setting their own criteria for tutor qualifications, there is an expectation that a high minimum standard for qualifications is in place and tutors will be at least highly qualified graduates.
All tutors will still require training to ensure that tuition is delivered in line with the model offered by the Tuition Partner. That is why when selecting tutoring organisations, our delivery partner, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) took into consideration the training offer available for tutors, and funding was allocated to those organisations with robust training programmes in place for all tutors to undertake.
The EEF continue to monitor all organisations involved in the programme to ensure tutoring is of a high quality and that schools are satisfied with the tuition being provided.