Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to help ensure pupils whose learning was impacted by the covid-19 pandemic are able to access post-16 catch-up support while in education and apprenticeships.

The department recognises that many young people in 16 to 19 education will have lost learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and we are therefore providing targeted support to help them to catch up.

We introduced the 16-19 Tuition Fund in 2020, giving access to one-to-one and small group tuition for students to catch up on their core subjects.  This academic year we have provided £102 million for the fund and will provide a further £222 million to continue the fund for an additional two years from the 2022/23 academic year. In addition, and to ensure that those with the least time left in education have the opportunity to progress, we have given providers of 16 to 19 education the option to offer students in year 13 (or equivalent in further education settings) the opportunity to repeat up to one more year of their studies in the 2021/22 academic year, where they had been particularly severely affected by the pandemic.

The department is also delivering an extra £1.6 billion boost for 16 to 19 year olds’ education across the next three financial years (2022/23 to 2024/25). Within this total investment, £800 million will be provided to fund 40 additional learning hours per student each year in 16 to 19 education settings to help them catch up on the vital teaching and learning they need to progress.

We also recognise that many apprentices were impacted by the pandemic, and this is why we introduced a number of flexibilities to ensure that apprenticeship training and assessments could continue. For example, where it was not possible and practicable for the apprentice to continue training, a break in learning could be used to allow the apprentice to return to learning at a future date and complete their apprenticeship. We also encouraged providers and assessment organisations to deliver training and assessments flexibly, to support apprentices in completing their apprenticeships.