The tutor learning initiative needs to be open to learning – but not just by students

With the Victorian tutor learning initiative (TLI) extended through 2022, government and non-government schools can continue to engage teaching professionals to provide extra individual learning support to students whose learning may have suffered in 2020 and 2021.

There’s $480 million being invested in the initiative to allow this program to run in schools during 2021 and 2022. More than 6400 teaching professionals tutored in 2021.

Evidence will play a critical role in successfully implementing this initiative. Our findings from the Monash Q Project suggest evidence use is important at four phases of an education initiative.

Firstly, evidence is needed to determine who most needs tutoring. While data suggests that many students are faring better than expected, some students require targeted support, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds (as do stressed teachers and families).

The challenge is more than lifting outcomes. Australian Principals Federation President Tina King rightly asks how the initiative is “supporting the cohort of students who have attendance and engagement issues?”

Second is developing a response that best suits the context of the school/learner. Disadvantage is often a confluence of geographical, social and cultural factors. While tutoring needs to be targeted to particular school community settings, schools will also have much to learn from each other because of what they have in common. This is sometimes undervalued.

Rigorous evidence use is foundational in maintaining trust through transparency and accountability.

Thirdly, the TLI should be evaluated to see if it’s been successful in addressing the problem – particularly in relation to disadvantaged students.

Flow-on effects of policy need to be considered. For example, casual relief teachers who have taken up tutoring positions are no longer available for covering classes when teachers are away on sick leave or for other reasons.

System thinking is needed here about the opportunity cost of taking teachers away from one role to fill another.

Read more: Putting education research into practice: The search for common ground among educators

A framework is needed to distribute teachers in the most effective and equitable way. A related question is: How can we lift the aggregate capability of teachers overall?

The findings of a systematic evaluation could have wider benefits beyond the pandemic. For example, how effective is small-group or one-on-one tuition? We know they can work in areas such as math – but what about other areas?

Finally, and following on from this, evidence for sustaining and growing the successful aspects of the TLI could provide an opportunity to see whether a targeted intervention can lift education outcomes for disadvantaged students.

What we can learn from the evidence

The collection and use of evidence needs to incorporate students, schools and systems perspectives in short and long terms to determine whether the initiative has worked, and what we can learn from such interventions.

Surprisingly, a 2015 OECD report found that only one in 10 of education reforms were scrutinised for impact. Governments talk about evidence-based approaches, but in practice could themselves improve at implementing them.

Wider challenges are at play. Policymaking is often messy and interconnected with other initiatives and social, economic and logistical factors, with access to partial, and sometimes contested, evidence.

Read more: Young people, the pandemic, and the shifting post-school transitions to employment

Governments must, for example, factor an exhausted and potentially volatile electorate into its policy moving forward. What is the community’s tolerance of failure?

Rigorous evidence use is foundational in maintaining trust through transparency and accountability.

Other OECD research has found that: “Implementation of new practices in education is more likely to be sustainable if the leaders are able to keep trust in the system. Clear communication between the different levels and a high degree of trust amongst all stakeholders are thus necessary for successful implementation.”

Accountability needs to run both ways – from ensuring schools account for funds spent, to the government measuring the effectiveness of public investment.

More to policymaking than just following advice

When questioned about the national pandemic plan, the federal Minister for Employment Stuart Robert suggested the plan might change due to the unpredictability of the virus. It’s a fair point, but he arguably could have better explained why.

In the case of the pandemic, policymaking involves more than just following the advice of epidemiological experts. It must factor in uncertainty, logistics (for example, vaccine availability, teacher availability), the mood of the electorate, and other health and economic considerations.

Like the national pandemic plan, the continued rollout of the TLI highlights a trade-off between speed and efficiency. How good is “good enough” in a crisis in order to act quickly?

Policy is also about persuasion, assisted by using evidence well, and learning and communicating what’s learnt to all of those involved. Success or failure, learning is the point.

We all need to learn along the way.

Lucas Walsh is a chief investigator on the Monash Q Project.

This article was co-authored with Simon Kent, Deputy CEO, Thought Leadership, at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government.

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