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The tutoring program was introduced in 2021 after COVID restrictions closed schools, and students were forced into long periods of remote learning. It was billed by then-education minister James Merlino as the “most critical thing” the government was doing in schools that year. It is funded until the end of next year.
An evaluation of a similar program in NSW found it had “minimal effect” on academic improvement in literacy and numeracy, but the Victorian Department of Education had repeatedly blocked the release of its own review.
The auditor-general’s evaluation focused on schools’ delivery of the initiative only in 2023 because staff and student absences due to COVID-19 and influenza affected the results in previous years.
The audit analysed schools’ delivery of the initiative against the department’s own “continuous improvement” tool.
It found that three years into the tutoring program, fewer than one-third of all government schools had fully effective practices that were targeted, appropriate to school context and appropriate to student need.
The audit found that despite collecting a range of data, the department had not used the information to drive improvement in schools’ tutoring practices between 2021 and 2023. The department also does not set benchmarks for schools’ performance against the framework.
“For the initiative to improve learning outcomes for students, the department must make a sustained effort to understand what works, why it works and how to support all schools to be fully effective,” the audit said.
“We understand the department rolled out the initiative quickly in response to students’ learning support needs during the COVID-19 response and that schools were still affected in 2022.
“However, the initiative has been in place for three years with a total commitment of over $1.2 billion and it does not show evidence of sustained improvement over time, either in schools’ practices or student learning outcomes.”
Centre for Independent Studies research fellow Trisha Jha, who has previously called for the release of tutoring data, said the combination of high autonomy and low transparency in Victorian education meant schools were not equipped with the knowledge to make better decisions.
“Given this program is funded until the end of 2025 and has cost $1.2 billion, the department needs to act now to ensure schools improve their practice,” she said.
Opposition education spokesperson Jess Wilson said it defied belief that students had not improved and the department had failed to improve the program.
“The Minister for Education must explain the incompetent management of this program and why a $1.2 billion investment in student learning has resulted in no meaningful improvements at a time that learning outcomes are already at record lows,” she said.
The Education Department has been contacted for comment.
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