By Sheila Mckenzie-
Uk Schools have been urged to consider the unfair advantages to disadvantage families when they offer tuition taken up mainly by families who can afford them.
Education experts want schools that offer tuition not to forget those from disadvantaged families who can’t afford it, and seek to make provision for them by either sign posting them to the right avenues or making special provision for them.
The call for attention to disadvantaged pupils comes after a survey by The Sutton Trust found a quarter of secondary teachers took on private tuition in the last two years. The Sutton Trust who conducted an annual polling of teachers and pupils say they say are coming from a ”social mobility” perspective in their evaluation of the landscape of tuition obtained by pupils . Their research also shows that two thirds of teachers who have tutored did so after direct contact from parents.
The survey of 1,678 teachers inquired whether schools had promoted paid-for private tuition to parents. They found that 24% of secondary school teachers were more likely to have tutored outside of school than 14% of primary teachers. 18% of primary school were more likely to say their school had sent parents information about private tutoring (18 per cent compared to 11 per cent).
The Sutton Trust are concerned that pupils from disadvantaged homes are being marginalised by a system that allows pupils from well off families to do better academically and improve their chances of better higher education in future.
Hilary Cornwell from the Sutton Trust told The Eye Of Media.Com:
”The source of education inequality lies outside the classroom; with the additional support better-off families are able to provide for their children. By using private tuition both to help with day-to-day schoolwork, and to prepare for exams, parents who can afford it are able to give their children a large academic boost. This will likely make a big difference to their access to the most selective universities, and subsequently to the highest paying careers.”
According to Tutorfair, the typical cost of a private tutor is now £23 an hour, a charge that rises to £29 for tutoring in London. Previous research by the Sutton Trust has shown that a higher number of advantaged children are substantially more likely to receive private or home tuition.
”In 2014, our analysis found that parents from the richest fifth of households are four times more likely to pay for extra classes outside school for their children than those in the poorest fifth of households, Ms Cornwell said. Her organisation want to see more efforts made to consider those from disadvantaged homes.
Several promising private and charitable projects offer the potential of making extra tuition available to less advantaged children. She cites examples of companies that can be useful to pupils from disadvantaged pupils.
”Tutorfair, for example, is a company that helps parents find and book tutors. As a website they are able to charge less than traditional tutoring agencies. For every student who pays they provide tutoring to a child who can’t afford it. Another example is The Tutor Trust.
This education charity based in Manchester, trains undergraduates to provide pupils with individual and small group tuition in English, Maths, and Science. Schools pay for this tuition for their pupils at well below market rates, usually with Pupil Premium money, making the scheme more affordable for disadvantaged schools. The Tutor trust model has been evaluated by the EEF with promising results”, she adds.
Ms Cornwell was also at pains to stress the importance of one to one tuition over group tuitions, especially for struggling students. ”Targeted one on one tuition for struggling students is proven to be better than group tuition because it helps focus on their needs better”, she said.
Image: tutorhouse.com
Helen Conwell of the Sutton Trust told The Eye Of Media.Com:
” Our research shows that one on one
Sit Peter Lampl, the founder and chair of The Sutton Trust and chair of the Education Endowment Foundation said schools should “consider the implications of teachers offering paid tuition outside of lessons and how this is promoted in school.”
He also repeated the trust’s long standing demand for the government to introduce a “means-tested voucher scheme” to allow families on lower income to provide tuition for their children.
The trust is also recommending schools prioritise one-to-one and small group tuition in their pupil premium spending and for the government funding access to tuition sustainably.
A report from the Education Endowment Fund found that children who receive weekly maths tutoring make three months’ more progress than those without a tutor.
The poll found that 27 per cent of 11 to 16-year-olds in England and Wales now say they have had tuition, up from 18 per cent in 2015. This number is considerably higher in London than any other region, rising to 41 per cent, up from 34 per cent in 2005.
Those who receive private tuition are also more likely to come from better-off backgrounds, with a third of pupils from “high affluence” households (34 per cent) receiving tuition at some point during their education, compared to 20 per cent of those in low affluence households.
The Sutton Trust wants more private tuition agencies to provide a proportion of tuition for free to disadvantaged pupils, as well as an expansion of non-profit tuition programmes that connect tutors with disadvantaged schools.
Last year, the UCL Institute of Education’s Professor John Jerrim called for a tax on private tutoring services, which he said were commonly used by affluent families to help their children prepare for grammar school entry exams. He said the money from the tax should go towards paying for vouchers for low and middle-income families to give them subsidised or free tuition.
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