The government is poised to terminate the contract of the Dutch multinational company it hired to run its flagship national tutoring programme (NTP), after official figures revealed the scheme was falling far short of its targets, sources close to the education department have told the Observer.
The £1.5bn programme was set up to help pupils across England whose learning has been most disrupted by the pandemic. But the Observer understands that the Department for Education has been holding meetings in the past two weeks to discuss replacing Randstad, which has so far met only 10% of its target for children receiving one-to-one or small-group tutoring from NTP tuition partners.
