The Times - UK (2022-02-21)

8 2GM Monday February 21 2022 | the times

NewsNews Coronavirus

An education expert who proposed the
National Tutoring Programme says it
risks being a “disaster” and wants a
public inquiry into its administration.
Lee Elliot Major, professor of social
mobility at Exeter University, said that
regular tutoring could boost pupils’
learning by three to five months across
the year, but instead the scheme risked
being a “tragedy” that would deter
schools from using tuition.
The scheme has signed up less than
10 per cent of its target of pupils for the
year. Head teachers say it is complex
and unwieldy, with one likening it to
“gambling” with school money.
The £1 billion programme seeks to
provide one-to-one or small group
tuition for children worst affected by
lost learning during the pandemic. It
has three pillars: funding for schools to
hire tutors directly; money for academ-
ic mentors who can work full-time with
high numbers of disadvantaged pupils;
and a £25 million tutoring programme
run by Randstad, a Dutch outsourcer,
in which schools can arrange tutoring.
Data released last month showed
that only 72,000 courses had begun
under schemes co-ordinated by Rand-
stad, including 52,000 tutoring courses,
10 per cent of the 524,000 target set for
the company.
“It is the most disadvantaged pupils

Pandemic has

little effect on

social attitudes

Social attitudes on public spending,

welfare and law and order have stayed

largely the same, despite the upheaval

of lockdowns and the threat of Covid,

analysis suggests.

Researchers compared the results of

three surveys in 2020 and 2021 with 40

years of data. They found that a trend

before the pandemic leaning to more

favourable attitudes about welfare pay-

ments for working-age adults carried

on, while concern about inequality

continued to be widespread.

Those who disagreed with the state-

ment “many people who get social

security don’t really deserve any help”

rose from 29 per cent between 2002 and

2012 to 42 per cent between 2017 and

2019. That trend continued during the
      pandemic, with 44 per cent disagreeing
      and only 18 per cent agreeing.
      Between 2017 and 2019, 60 per cent
      agreed that “ordinary people do not get
      their fair share of the nation’s wealth”.
      That edged up slightly during the
      pandemic to 64 per cent. The opinion
      “people who break the law should be
      given stiffer sentences” fell from 80 per
      cent between 1998 and 2014 to 67 per
      cent in 2018-19 and 62 per cent by 2021.
      Professor Sir John Curtice, who led
      the study by the National Centre for
      Social Research and Kent University
      said: “Rather than proving to be a ‘turn-
      ing point’ in social attitudes, the pan-
      demic has been more of a ‘barometer’ of
      patterns and trends that were already
      in evidence.”

hong kong

The city is in “all-out

combat” to contain a

surge in infection, its

No 2 official said, with

builders from the

mainland joining efforts

to eradicate the virus.

Scenes of people lying

outside hospitals in the

rain and cold have

caused shock, leading

to the creation of

shelters as hospitals

become overwhelmed.

Officials reported 6,

new cases yesterday

after the government

announced that the

Kai Tak Cruise

Terminal would be

turned into a 1,000-bed

Covid facility.

Hong Kong has

recorded about 40,

infections and fewer

than 300 deaths, far

below other big cities.

However, some

epidemiologists expect

daily infections to

approach 30,000 by the

end of March.

italy

The health ministry

said that people with

severely compromised

immune systems should

receive a fourth mRNA

vaccine, provided that

at least 120 days had

passed since their

previous booster.

The commissioner

appointed by Rome for

the emergency will set

the date for the

recommendation to

come into force based

on the needs of the

vaccine campaign, the

ministry said. The

decision was made

because the virus was

still in high circulation

and because boosters

had been shown to cut

deaths and the need to

go to hospital.

canada

Police smashed the

windows of vehicles

abandoned in the

centre of Ottawa and

towed them away as

city workers cleared

rubbish after a two-day

stand-off and 170

arrests ended a

truckers’ protest at

Covid restrictions that

had lasted three weeks.

israel

Unvaccinated tourists

will be allowed entry

for the first time since

the pandemic began,

Naftali Bennett, the

prime minister said

after a “consistent

decline” in morbidity.

Under rules from

March 1, tourists will

need to take a PCR test

before flying to Israel,

with another when they

land. Israeli citizens

need only take the test

upon arrival.

Hong Kong goes

into ‘all-out combat’

Global cases

423,253,

Global deaths

5,882,

Countries reporting most deaths

Most new cases

US

Brazil

India

Russia

Mexico

Peru

UK

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1

2

3

4

5

18

Deaths per million population

Rank Now Jan 31, 2021

1,

1,

1,

1,

1,

797

1,

1,

836

949

1,

1,

1,

6,

5,

4,

4,

4,

3,

3,

3,

3,

3,

3,

2,

2,

Peru

Bulgaria

Bosnia & Herz.

Hungary

N. Macedonia

Georgia

Croatia

Czech Rep

Slovakia

Romania

Brazil

US

UK

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10

11

15

28

( 16 )

( 13 )

( 7 )

( 14 )

( 10 )

( 40 )

( 17 )

( 5 )

( 37 )

( 31 )

( 24 )

( 11 )

( 4 )

Data supplied by Johns Hopkins University. US data fluctuates

because of irregular reporting by different states. Figures as of

6pm yesterday. Sources: UK government, Our World in Data,

selected countries

World update

176,

113,

105,

104,

81,

934,

644,

511,

337,

315,

209,

160,

25,

Russia

Germany

Brazil

S. Korea

Japan

UK

BEN MARANS/SOPA IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK

Hundreds of taxi

drivers in Hong

Kong have been

given full PPE to

ferry the sick to

treatment clinics

Covid catch-up for schools ‘risks

failing pupils who need it most’

Emma Yeomans who have fallen further behind and the
richest pupils who have stretched
further ahead,” Major said. “When I
first proposed the service, the whole
idea was to level up the education play-
ing field — to give poorer pupils what
middle-class pupils were already bene-
fiting from through private tutoring
outside school. Tragically, that field has
become even more skewed in the post-
pandemic era.”
He called for an independent inquiry
to find out what had gone wrong, and
added: “It would be a disaster if the
legacy of NTP was to put teachers off
one of the most effective tools we have
in education.”
Many teachers had hoped that tutor-
ing would be a “silver bullet” for recov-
ery, said Pepe Di’Iasio, head of Wales
High School near Rotherham, but it
had proved so difficult to access that
head teachers were simply avoiding it.
A survey by the NAHT school
leaders’ union found that 38 per cent of
heads had no plans to use the scheme
organised by Randstad. Di’Iasio said
that his school had opted to use its own
teachers, running additional sessions
after school to help pupils.
When arranging tutors through the
scheme, 75 per cent of the cost is funded
and 25 per cent must be paid by schools.
“It’s about value for money,” he said,“so
what we’ve had to do as a school is
decide, are we better off using that

25 per cent with our own in-school

logistics for supporting tutoring; or do

we risk gambling it on a system that is

taking time to set up, that isn’t quality-

assured and that will cost us additional

money when we can’t necessarily see

what impact it will have?”

Jo Coton, head of the NET Acade-

mies Trust, which runs six primary

schools, said that tutoring was very

helpful, but outside tutors might not be

best placed to help young children.

“Some are not recent or experienced

practitioners,” she said. “Young child-

ren learn best when they have secure

and trusting relationships with teach-

ers. Therefore, staff are often best

placed to deliver additional interven-

tions, not tutors from outside of school.”

John Nichols, president of The

Tutors’ Association, a professional

body for 30,000 tutors, echoed calls for

an inquiry and said that he feared tutors

were being “tarred with this brush

because of bureaucratic ineptitude”.

He said many members had offered

to work for less than a third of normal

fees, but had been deterred by the

bureaucracy. “Most of these companies

were planning on working on the NTP

effectively as a charitable aspect of their

business, as a way of trying to support

the national catch-up effort,” he said.

The scheme has been plagued by

contract disputes and IT issues. When

head teachers tried to put student

names and information into the web

platform to register them, it often

crashed and deleted the data, Nichols

said. In some cases, tutors spoke to

schools directly and handled the regis-

tration for them.

Instead, he said, the Department for

Education should consider a voucher

scheme to pay for schools to hire tutors.

“It would be enormously cheaper,” he

said. “There’s an enormous amount of

goodwill to get involved in more

sensible terms.”

A spokeswoman for the Department

for Education said that the programme

was part of the recovery plan that

included “£5 billion of investment in

high-quality tutoring, world-class

training for teachers, funding for

schools and extending time in colleges”.

A spokesman for Randstad said:

“Over 300,000 courses have already

been delivered in the first term of this

academic year and we continue to work

closely with all our stakeholders to

ensure we deliver an ambitious and

high-quality programme at pace.”

Lee Elliot Major

says it would be a

disaster if schools

were put off the

tutoring scheme