London: The Department of Education in UK has announced immediate suspension of use of under-age tutors in the national tutoring programme (NTP). This step was taken following the disclosure of the use under-18 Sri Lankan youth for a pay of as little as £1.57 by NTP. The tutoring programme has been supported from £1.7 4bn found provided by the government as part of the pandemic response.
Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “First of all there’s a question about whether it’s ethical to be paying £1.57 to £3.07 an hour, outsourcing in this way. It also raises a bigger issue about why this money is being paid to the private sector whose objective in life must be to make a profit.”
The Sri Lanka-based tutors were provided through Third Space Learning (TSL), one of 33 tuition providers approved by the NTP to deliver one-to-one and small group tuition. An NTP spokesperson said that TSL was “one of the most popular providers”, supporting more than 800 schools since the programme was launched in November. TSL, which works with one tutor centre in Sri Lanka and two partner centres in India, had a minimum age requirement of 17 with pay per tuition session as low as 425 Sri Lankan rupees, the equivalent of £1.57, rising to an average of £3.07.
The £350m national tutoring programme promises high quality subsidised tuition for disadvantaged children. Schools can choose from the approved tuition partners and pay 25% of the cost while government picks up the rest of the bill. The TSL founder and chief executive, Tom Hooper, said: “Using tutors in India and Sri Lanka is a part of the solution to try and make tutoring more accessible to children from disadvantaged backgrounds. They are all Stem [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] graduates and receive training and ongoing professional development which is overseen by our UK-based team of teachers.”
After being confronted with details from the website of Third Space Global, TSL’s wholly owned subsidiary in Sri Lanka, Hooper corrected himself and said tutors were in fact a mix of graduates and undergraduates. Asked in FAQs on the Third Space Global website about the minimum qualification to apply, it says: “You should be skilled in maths and English and pass our initial online test.” Another question – “Why is the payment only 425 rupees?” – appears to have been removed.
Hooper said £1.57 was the guaranteed minimum pay per session booked, whether the session takes place or is cancelled, but average pay was £3.07 an hour which is “2.5 times the estimated equivalent graduate salary” in Sri Lanka. “It is also 15 times the minimum wage in Sri Lanka, though clearly we hold ourselves to a much higher threshold than this,” he said.
Of the £1.57 minimum pay per session, Hooper added: “This ensures a minimum and predictable income for our tutors, which is clearly important.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We set high standards for the national tutoring programme and do not hesitate to take action against the violators of those standards. “Third Space has now suspended the use of anyone under 18 as tutors within the programme. Stringent ongoing monitoring of all organisations involved in the programme is in place to make sure tutoring is of a high quality.” The department confirmed that three 17-year-old undergraduate tutors had been employed.
