The Baker Dearing Educational Trust’s Director of Education and Innovation Kate Ambrosi was quoted in a story in the latest edition of FE Week, voicing Baker Dearing’s view that the Department for Education should continue the 16-19 Tuition Fund.

The Fund, launched in the 2020/21 academic year in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, paid for schools, colleges and other 16-19 institutions to deliver small group tuition in English, maths, and other courses where learning was disrupted.

Speaking after new data revealed that education settings had struggled to spend their full allocation of the Fund, Baker Dearing Educational Trust Director of Education and Innovation Kate Ambrosi told FE Week:

“Baker Dearing and the University Technical College network would like the government to continue the 16-19 Tuition Fund, which UTCs have used to, for example, pay staff for weekend, after-school or holiday intervention classes with small groups of post-16 students.”

“Today’s sixth form students were some of the worst hit by the pandemic, as the years leading up to their Level 2 exams were disrupted by lockdowns and uncertainty over how they would be examined.

“As such, they require innovative and specialised interventions. However, the development of these interventions was stifled by the original limits on how the funding could be spent.

“That is why the government should continue the Fund, so education settings can develop and roll out the most effective interventions for their students.”