National Tutoring Programme Statistics Released!

Today (15th December), Department for Education (DfE) have released interim statistics for the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) for the 2022/23 Academic Year.

The National Tutoring Programme is a scheme that provides support for pupils and students most affected by disruption to their education as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In the 2022 to 2023 academic year, the Department for Education provided core funding for the NTP directly to schools to enable them to decide how best to provide tutoring for their pupils. There are 3 routes to providing tuition: academic mentors, tuition partners and school-led tutoring.

This publication provides, for 2022/23:

• national, regional and local authority level estimates of the total number of starts made by pupils on NTP courses, and
• national, regional and local authority level estimates of the percentages of schools participating in the National Tutoring Programme 

The publication also includes estimates for the total number of starts made by pupils on NTP courses since NTP began in 2020-21.

For 2022/23, DfE has simplified our process for collecting data on participation in NTP. In 2021/22, for example, we had three separate data collection mechanism for each of the three NTP routes (see the methodology for details). This publication uses data captured as part of the School Census for 2022/23 which does not capture information on NTP route. Detailed statistics for NTP in previous years, including breakdown by routes, can be found here.

Headline facts and figures – 2022/23

Course starts by pupils

• 2,854,648
• since start of NTP in England, between November 2020 and October 2022.

Course starts by pupils

• 398,939
• since start of 2022 to 2023 academic year.

Percentage of schools Participating in NTP

• 43.7%
• since start of 2022 to 2023 academic year.

Starts Made by Pupils on NTP Courses

Up to 6th October 2022, DfE estimates that at least 2,854,648 starts had been made by pupils on courses of tuition provided through the National Tutoring Programme. This is across the 2020 to 2021 academic year, 2021 to 2022 academic year and the 2022 to 2023 academic year so far.

Up to 6th October 2022, DfE estimates that at least 398,939 starts had been made by pupils on courses of tuition provided through the National Tutoring Programme in the 2022 to 2023 academic year.

Not all courses delivered to pupils were 15 hours long. Individual pupils may undertake more than one course. Where a tutor delivered a course to multiple pupils, that course was counted once per pupil. See methodology for more details. 

Schools Participation in NTP

Up to 6th October 2022, DfE estimates that 43.7% of state-funded schools have so far participated in the National Tutoring Programme in the 2022 to 2023 academic year.

In October, 140 (0.7%) of schools included in the total had not yet been allocated NTP funding (allocation data is published here). Those schools are included in the calculation of school participation to enable comparison with equivalent rates from previous years and because funding allocations can change throughout the year.

Read more here.

Sector Response

Julie McCulloch, Director of Policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, said:

“The decision to publish this data at an individual school level is unhelpful and counterproductive.

“The NTP is overly complex and was introduced at a time when schools were under huge pressure and battling high levels of pupil and staff absence caused by Covid. As the scheme is only partially subsidised, it represents a considerable cost to schools to deliver from budgets that are under extreme pressure and is therefore inequitable. Take-up was always going to be variable and the statistics published today simply ‘name and shame’ schools without providing any context of their individual circumstances.

“We have called for schools to be able to access their allocated funding irrespective of whether or not they can afford to further subsidise it themselves. This would not cost the government a penny and would give more pupils access to the tutoring scheme. Sadly this eminently sensible suggestion has been rejected by the government.”