“The biggest problem with the National Tutoring Programme is that it is only partially subsidised by the government with the rest of the cost falling on school budgets. Schools struggle to afford these costs because of years of government underfunding of the education system. As the government intends to reduce the subsidy next academic year – even though by less than it initially planned – the programme will obviously become unaffordable for an increasing number of schools. The problem could easily be solved by the government simply giving the full allocation for the National Tutoring Programme to schools without requiring them to add extra money into the pot. We have made this argument on several occasions and just cannot understand why ministers do not take this simple step.”