Can the National Tutoring Programme survive the funding crisis?

One of the likely early casualties of the education funding crisis could be the government’s flagship Covid education recovery policy, the National Tutoring Programme. This is because of the poorly thought-out funding mechanism which this year provides only 60% of the cost of tutoring with schools expected to fund the other 40%. Next year the situation gets even worse, with the government proposing to fund only 25% of the cost, with schools responsible for the other 75%. 

The government’s view is that schools’ contributions should be sourced from other funding streams, such as the Pupil Premium, and there is a vague aspiration that this will eventually lead to the NTP becoming embedded in schools as part of their normal funding allocation.