Treasury’s £1.4bn school catch-up fund falls short, say educators

Education leaders have accused the UK government of falling short of its commitment to children in England as it announced a further £1.4bn to recoup learning lost during the pandemic.

The Department for Education on Tuesday said it would expand its tutoring fund by £1bn, with a further £400m for teacher training. The total will support 6m 15-hour tutoring courses for disadvantaged children and expand tuition for those aged 16 to 19, it said.

The announcement is part of the plan to support children in England after face-to-face teaching was suspended during the pandemic and adds to £1.7bn already committed.

Gavin Williamson, education secretary, said the money would go a “long way to boost children’s learning” and address attainment gaps.

But some educators have suggested catching up will require more than £15bn in investment and that the latest pledge falls far short of what is needed.

“It’s a damp squib,” said Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, adding: “The government had the opportunity here to invest in the architecture of education; instead it has chosen to paper over the cracks.”

People familiar with discussions said the Treasury had been unwilling to commit larger sums that would bring the total close to the £10bn-£15bn the Education Policy Institute said would be needed to recover learning.

Kevan Collins, a former teacher appointed to oversee the government’s catch-up programme, said in February recovery could take five years and would require “radical” action, such as extending the school day to include extracurricular activities.

On Tuesday he said investments in teaching quality and tutoring offered “evidence-based support” to help children catch up. “But more will be needed to meet the scale of the challenge.”

“This is a hugely disappointing announcement which lets down the nation’s children,” said Geoff Barton, head of the Association of School and College Leaders.

Samantha Butters, chief executive of the Fair Education Alliance, said any recovery scheme needed to go beyond tuition to include measures such as investing in staff, supporting parental engagement and introducing non-academic activities.

“What we’ve seen is a pulling back of announcements, so it’s purely on tuition,” she said. “The [National Tutoring Programme] has been a hugely important vehicle to scale up tuition for disadvantaged young people but it’s not a silver bullet — it’s not enough, and we’re missing a trick if we think it alone is going to be change things.”

Of the £1bn newly committed for tutoring, £218m will go to the National Tutoring Programme set up in response to the pandemic, £579m to schools to develop their own tutoring schemes, and £222m to tutoring courses for 16 to 19 year olds.

From September a private company, Randstad, will take over management of the NTP from the Education Endowment Foundation, a charity.

The opposition Labour party on Tuesday proposed its own recovery plan, including in-school counselling and increasing funding for disadvantaged pupils. It accused the government of treating children as “an afterthought”. 

The Institute for Fiscal Studies in February said the long-term impact of lost learning would mean 8.7m children could lose out on a combined £350bn in lifetime earnings, and a £100bn loss for the government in tax revenue.

Luke Sibieta, IFS researcher, said the government should commit £30bn — the value of half a year of day-to-day spending in schools — to “match the scale of the challenge” and avoid a much larger hit to public finances in the long term.