Education inequality is a complex social phenomenon that can be thought of in many different ways. Some of these perspectives relate inequalities to access and experience of education, and others as outcomes after leaving the education system **(Hart, 2018).
Generally, education inequality is referred to as the difference in attainment between children from different socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds. For example, children from lower socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to underachieve at school than children from higher income families (Antonopoulos et al, 2020).
Socio-economic status (SES) is important because its effect on children’s education and life chances is so profound.
SES can help us to understand the impact of parents level of income, education and occupation on children’s educational outcomes. Researchers often link different measures of SES to different outcomes. For example, Chanfreau et al (2015) looked at primary aged children who received extra tuition by mother’s level of education and parents type of occupation. They found that children with mothers who had a post-graduate qualification were more likely to receive private tuition. Similarly, children with parents in professional occupations were also more likely to receive private tuition. In 2016, Sutton Trust published a report exploring the difference in private tuition take-up according to SES. They too discovered that children from higher income families were more likely to receive private tuition than children from lower income families (Kirby, 2016). Affordability could be a plausible explanation for the difference in private tuition take-up. Chanfreau et al (2015) found that less fortunate children engaged in low cost after school clubs. Similarly, Lareau (2002) concludes that financial resources allow parents to provide extra-curricular activities for their children.
There are many ways to reduce education inequality, and one way is through tuition. Education Endowment Fund (EEF), a charity working to improve educational outcomes, conducted an independent evaluation of small group maths tuition. They concluded that small group maths tuition helped to improve the attainment of year 6 pupils eligible for free school meals (Torgerson et al, 2018).
“There is good evidence that one-to-one and small group tuition can have a positive impact on attainment” (Torgerson et al, 2018).
In another evaluation by NatCen Social Research, a leading social research organisation, showed that the programme improved disadvantaged year 6 pupils’ engagement and confidence in maths (Bristow et al, 2022).
Organisations that use tuition to make a difference are numerous. The government launched the National Tutoring Programme (NTP), a £1bn tuition initiative to help children affected by the Covid pandemic to catch up. The Tutor Trust provides affordable tuition to schools by training university students as tutors, in Greater Manchester and surrounding areas. Action Tutoring works in a number of regions in England and uses volunteers to tutor pupils, and finally, **Third Space Learning** works in schools to provide online and one-to-one maths tutoring.