Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan]

I am deeply concerned about this issue, and that is because of the threat of strikes. Our students are now in a position to have face-to-face teaching, and I would urge every lecturer to reconsider taking strike action. Strikes have not helped the situation before, but they have impacted students who deserve a fairer deal.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

10. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the national tutoring programme in improving the educational attainment of pupils in the north of England.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

The national tutoring programme reached 308,000 pupils in 2020-21 and this year it is expanding further to offer high quality tuition for up to 2 million pupils across the country.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I know that the Secretary of State is as concerned as I am about children in my constituency reaching their full educational potential, but I am concerned that only 240,000 enrolled on the national tutoring programme in its first year, that it has only a third of the funding that his own Government adviser put forward for covid catch-up and that funding per pupil will not reach 2010 levels for another three years. Can we see some evidence that the Government’s proposals are working? For example, can we see granular information about how the national tutoring programme is reaching the most disadvantaged children in our communities?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her question. She is always assiduous and follows the evidence. I am also grateful to her for coming to the Department on another matter to do with further education. The academic years independent evaluation is taking place and will assess the programme’s impact on pupils’ educational attainment in all regions, including the north, and we will of course publish that. I want to share with the House some of the latest reported figures on the national tutoring programme. It is going well in all parts of England, and provisional figures from our delivery partners show that so far this year 3,822 schools have engaged with the programme through the tuition partners and academic mentors. The latest reports show that 475 academic mentors have been placed in schools in the most disadvantaged areas of England. On top of this, all schools are sharing the £579 million to recruit their own local tutors.