Tutors Supporting Wendouree Classrooms – Ministerial Response
Scroll down for the Minister’s response, or click here to discover more about how we’re working for Wendouree.
Original constituency question from Juliana Addison MP to Parliament –
My question is to the Minister for Education. Will the minister please provide me with an update of how the tutor learning initiative is benefiting students in my electorate of Wendouree?
On a visit to Forest Street Primary School, a great school in Wendouree, I was pleased to meet a tutor working with grade 2 students to improve their numeracy. As a former teacher, I want every student to reach their potential, and the tutor program is supporting this.
Over the last two years the tutor learning initiative has identified the needs of individual students and provided instruction in small groups to help these students develop better understandings. I welcome that the program has been extended into 2023 through our nation-leading investment of $258 million. Our tutor initiative supports our classroom teachers and provides opportunities for teachers who may be retired or have caring responsibilities and are unable to work full-time to be able to return to the classroom and continue teaching, which they enjoy so much.
I look forward to the minister’s response.
Response from the Hon. Natalie Hutchins MP, Minister for Education (18 August 2023) –
Students in Wendouree and across Victoria are benefitting from the Government’s $738 million Tutor Learning Initiative, the single largest investment in targeted learning support in Victoria’s history.
Under the Tutor Learning Initiative, or TLI, students identified as in need of additional assistance work in small groups of up to five with a tutor who can provide them with the help they need.
The TLI was first designed to support students who struggled most during remote and flexible learning. The program is now being extended into 2023 through funding of $258 million for government and low-fee non-government schools to help students who are struggling with their learning, with a focus on literacy and numeracy.
In 2022, the TLI enabled Victorian government schools to engage over 5,500 tutors to support more than 114,000 students across the state. In the Wendouree electorate alone, in government schools there were 144 tutors, supporting 1,674 students.
Since TLI was introduced, government schools in the Wendouree electorate have received a total of $11.2 million in funding including $3.5 million for the 2023 school year. In the Wendouree electorate and across Victoria, every government school, and eligible non-government school, is receiving a minimum of $25,000 in TLI funding in 2023.
The Tutor Learning Initiative is having a positive impact on students’ learning and their connectedness to school. Victoria’s investment in the initiative is leading the way, with a recent national study from the Grattan Institute recommending small-group tutoring be taken up by all states and territories.