Project report
Closing England's Maths Attainment Gap through One-to-One Tutoring – Global Solutions
Sweta Gupta, Mohamed Abouaziza ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This report examines how one-to-one tutoring could help close the maths attainment gap for disadvantaged students in England following COVID-related school closures. The authors propose using online tutors from emerging market economies like Sri Lanka to deliver tutoring at scale and affordable cost to schools. The report presents a global online tutoring model as a potential solution to address the larger learning losses experienced by disadvantaged students compared to affluent peers.
Key points
- Disadvantaged students in England lost approximately seven months of learning due to COVID closures, compared to two months for all students
- The attainment gap is almost entirely driven by maths performance
- Private tutoring is typically accessed by affluent households, which widens the disadvantage gap
- One-to-one tutoring is proven effective for helping students catch up
- The report presents Third Space Learning's model in Sri Lanka as a case study for delivering affordable online tutoring
Limitations
This is a feasibility report rather than an impact evaluation, so it does not provide evidence of whether the proposed tutoring model actually improves student outcomes or closes attainment gaps. The document is focused on England's education system and does not evaluate child well-being outcomes more broadly.
Abstract
In the aftermath of COVID-related school closures in the UK, students lost two months of learning, but the loss among the 1.7 million disadvantaged students has been much larger at seven months. This disadvantaged gap is almost entirely driven by maths attainment. One-to-one tutoring is proven to be effective at helping students catch up, but private tutoring is most likely to be taken up by children from affluent households, further widening the disadvantaged gap in learning. This report discusses the feasibility of an innovative tutoring delivery model that uses the global graduate market to deliver tutoring at a scale that can solve this problem and a price that schools can afford. While the report discusses the overall opportunity that the emerging market economies of South- and South-East Asia provide, it also presents the Third Space Learning model in Sri Lanka as a case study to investigate the practicalities of the global online tutoring model.