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The £ 350 million “massive recovery operation” promised by Boris Johnson to help students affected by the coronavirus lockdown has run into difficulties, with 40% of its funding unallocated so far.
A Schools Week investigation has found that only £ 106 million from the £ 350 million fund will go to the Johnson-backed National Mentoring Program (NTP), which aims to offer individual and small group subsidized tuition for students from disadvantaged schools in England.
But earlier this month, only “hundreds” of England’s more than 22,000 public schools had expressed interest in enrolling in the program, which launches in November.
The investigation found that the DfE has spent less than £ 139 million and it seems unlikely that it will find ways to spend it on tuition for the current school year as promised. According to a DfE spokesperson, the fate of the rest will be decided by the government’s spending review next month.
Mary Bousted, Deputy Secretary General of the National Education Union, said: “Even more government sleight of hand. Once again, they have been overcommitted but not delivered. “
In June, when the fund was launched as part of Johnson’s £ 1 billion coronavirus recovery plan, £ 650 million went directly to schools to help pupils aged 16 and under. The remaining £ 350 million went to a national mentoring program during 2020-21. school year.
Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, told parliament: “The plan will be delivered during the next academic year, bringing long-term reform to the education sector that will protect a generation of children from the effects of this pandemic.”
But Schools Week found that only £ 211 million of the £ 350 million, including £ 96 million for schools and colleges for students aged 16 to 19, has been allocated and can be spent by grantees on their own staff and upgrade plans. Another £ 9 million is set aside for early childhood language intervention programs.
Of the remaining £ 106 million, £ 76 million funds the NTP’s ‘tuition partners’, an approved set of businesses and charities that provide subsidized tuition to schools.
A spokesperson for the NTP said it expected to fund 30-50 tuition partners in England after a “rigorous review process”, including its previous experience working with schools.
The first tutorials will take place in November. “Our goal is to start delivering several thousand [pupils] in the first six weeks after launch and we expect to increase support in the spring period as the scheme weakens and demand and awareness increases, ”the spokesperson said.
Another £ 30 million goes to 1,000 individual academic mentors to provide “intensive and frequent support” to students. But only 150 of the 1,000 mentors will be working in schools as of November, The Guardian revealed earlier this month, with 400 arriving in January and the remaining 450 in February. The tutoring program will end in July.
School leaders have been largely skeptical of the tuition program, with most saying they would prefer to receive more funds to use for their own plans.
More recently, Johnson said in a speech at the Conservative party conference that individual enrollment could be expanded to include talented students.
Johnson said he wanted to “further an idea that we have tested in the pandemic and explore the value of one-on-one teaching, both for students who are in danger of being left behind and for those who have exceptional abilities.”
