Small group tuition would help Australia's struggling students: Grattan Institute report

Analysis of the 2022 NAPLAN results by the independent think tank shows a year three child whose parents didn't finish high school will be two years and three months behind in literacy compared to child of university-educated parents.

By year nine, this cohort will be about five years and two months behind in literacy.

In numeracy, year three children of high school leavers start one year and seven months behind children of university-educated parents and end up four years behind by year nine.

Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia rolled out various small-group tutoring programs in response to disruptions to learning caused by the pandemic while The Smith Family ran one-on-one online tutoring trials.

Grattan Institute principal education advisor Julie Sonnemann said governments and school systems have an opportunity to learn from these trials to create an evidence-based tutoring program to help under-performing students.

"What can start as a small crack in a child's learning, if they don't really get on top of it, it can snowball and grow over time," she said.

"Some people might think this is all about student family background and what happens outside of the school gates and nothing can be done. That is not the case. We know that with the right quality literacy and numeracy instruction that big gains can be had in student learning."

The Grattan Institute report calls for a $10 million investment to fill research gaps to determine the best way to deliver a cost-effective small-group tuition program with high-quality tutors.

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Evidence suggests a tutor working with groups of about three students over at least 10 weeks boosts their learning. Three sessions per week of up to one hour each is best practice.

Ms Sonnemann said the evidence showed small group tutoring was best conducted during the school day in collaboration with the classroom teacher, but emerging evidence from online programs during the pandemic had positive results and could be an area for governments to explore.

Teachers get the best results in small-group tutoring programs, but considering the nationwide shortage of teachers, Ms Sonnemann said pre-service teachers and retired teachers could be recruited at tutors.

The report suggests if every Australian student started small group tutoring this year it would result in collective extra lifetime earnings of $6 billion, which would be six times more than the program cost.

"What we'd like to see is commitments from governments that really stay the course on this issue where we know that evidence is strong and to take up a five year commitment where they can actually really take the time to get implementation right so that schools are well-supported."

The report follows the Productivity Commission's recommendation the next National Schools Reform Agreement should have firm targets to improve literacy and numeracy results for students who were falling behind, including Indigenous students, those living in regional and remote areas and students of parents with low educational attainment.

Ms Sonnemann said it was important that small-group tutoring was not used as a band-aid for poor classroom instruction but it would be in addition to mainstream class.

"I think we often expect teachers to be able to teach to every single child and to personalise learning. I think that's not achievable," she said.

"I think it does have to be a team effort and at times students will require additional support on top of the universal, mainstream classroom and that is okay."