A network policy analysis of England’s National Tutoring Programme: COVID-19 and the embedding of the private sector in state governance


Journal website: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/   Manuscript received: 28/10/2024 
Facebook: /EPAAA  Revisions received: 23/5/2025 
Twitter: @epaa_aape  Accepted: 3/7/2025 

 

Education Privatisation and Commercialisation in the 

Context and Aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic  
 

education policy analysis 
archives 
A peer-reviewed, independent,  
open access, multilingual journal  
 
 
 
 
 

 Arizona State University 

 

Volume 33 Number 60  September 23, 2025 ISSN 1068-2341 

 

A Network Policy Analysis of England’s National 
Tutoring Programme: COVID-19 and the Embedding   

of the Private Sector in State Governance 
 

Bronwen M. A. Jones 

Patrick L. J. Bailey  

&  

Alice Bradbury 

Institute of Education, University College of London 

United Kingdom 

Citation: Jones, B. M. A., Bailey, P. L. J., & Bradbury, A. (2025). A network policy analysis 
of England’s National Tutoring Programme: COVID-19 and the embedding of the private 
sector in state governance. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 33(60). 
https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.33.8985 This article is part of the special issue Education 
Privatisation and Commercialisation in the Context and Aftermath of the COVID-19 
Pandemic, guest edited by Sue Winton and Nicole Mockler. 
 
Abstract: This paper examines the UK government’s main intervention in education during 
and after the COVID crisis—the National Tutoring Programme (NTP)—which operated in 
England from 2020–24. It involves a truncated genealogy of the NTP which shows how, 
when learning loss emerged as a key policy problem, the private sector was promoted as the 
main policy solution. We trace the evolution and decline of the NTP in response to schools’ 
experiences and needs. We also conduct a network analysis of the final iteration of the NTP 
and suggest that although it can be seen as a policy failure, it set a significant precedent in the 
extent to which the private sector became imbricated into the machinations of governance. 

http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/
https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.33.8985


Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 33  No. 60  SPECIAL ISSUE 2 

 

 

We use the construct of heterarchical governance to argue that the NTP saw the 
establishment of a mezzanine level of governance which saw the involvement of the global 
education industry, with its concomitant neoliberal imaginary of education, embedded at a 
powerful level of the policy process. This raises questions about how privatisation might be 
conceptualised and articulated as well as raising concerns about the capacity for global actors 
to access and shape national education systems, notably during times of crisis.     
Keywords: privatisation; tutoring; COVID-19; policy networks; governance 
 
Un análisis de política en red del Programa Nacional de Tutorías en Inglaterra: 
La COVID-19 y la incorporación del sector privado en la gobernanza estatal 
Resumen: Este artículo examina la principal intervención del gobierno del Reino Unido 
en materia de educación durante y después de la crisis de la COVID -19: El Programa 
Nacional de Tutorías (National Tutoring Programme, NTP), que operó en Inglaterra entre 
2020 y 2024. Presenta una genealogía resumida del NTP que muestra cómo, cuando la 
pérdida de aprendizaje emergió como un problema clave de política pública, se promovió 
al sector privado como la principal solución. Rastreamos la evolución y el declive del 
NTP en respuesta a las experiencias y necesidades de las escuelas. Asimismo, realizamos 
un análisis de redes de la última versión del NTP y sostenemos que, aunque puede 
considerarse un fracaso de política pública, estableció un precedente significativo en 
cuanto al grado en que el sector privado se entrelazó con las dinámicas de gobernanza. 
Utilizamos el concepto de gobernanza heterárquica para argumentar que el NTP supuso 
el establecimiento de un nivel intermedio de gobernanza que implicó la participación de 
la industria educativa global, con su correspondiente imaginario neoliberal de la 
educación, incrustada en un nivel influyente del proceso de formulación de políticas. 
Esto plantea interrogantes sobre cómo podría conceptualizarse y articularse la 
privatización, así como preocupaciones sobre la capacidad de los actores globales para 
acceder y moldear los sistemas educativos nacionales, especialmente en tiempos de crisis.  
Palabras-clave: privatización; tutoría; COVID-19; redes de política; gobernanza 
 
Uma análise de política em rede do Programa Nacional de Tutoria da Inglaterra: 
A COVID-19 e a incorporação do setor privado na governança estatal 
Resumo: Este artigo examina a principal intervenção do governo do Reino Unido na 
educação durante e após a crise da COVID-19: O Programa Nacional de Tutoria 
(National Tutoring Programme, NTP), que funcionou na Inglaterra de 2020 a 2024. 
Apresenta uma genealogia resumida do NTP que mostra como, quando a perda de 
aprendizagem surgiu como um problema central de política pública, o setor privado foi 
promovido como a principal solução. Acompanhamos a evolução e o declínio do NTP 
em resposta às experiências e necessidades das escolas. Também realizamos uma análise 
de redes da última versão do NTP e argumentamos que, embora possa ser considerado 
um fracasso de política pública, estabeleceu um precedente significativo no grau em que 
o setor privado se imbricou nas engrenagens da governança. Utilizamos o conceito de 
governança heterárquica para sustentar que o NTP representou o estabelecimento de um 
nível intermediário de governança que contou com a participação da indústria global de 
educação, com seu imaginário neoliberal correspondente, incorporado a um nível 
influente do processo de formulação de políticas. Isso levanta questões sobre como a 
privatização pode ser conceituada e articulada, bem co mo preocupações sobre a 
capacidade de atores globais de acessar e moldar sistemas educacionais nacionais, 
especialmente em tempos de crise. 
Palavras-chave: privatização; tutoria; COVID-19; redes de políticas; governança 
 

 



A Network Policy Analysis of England’s National Tutoring Programme 3 

 

 
A Network Policy Analysis of England’s National Tutoring 

Programme: COVID-19 and the Embedding of the Private Sector in 
State Governance  

 
This paper examines the UK government’s main intervention in education during and 

after the COVID crisis—the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) —which operated in 
England from 2020–24. This programme involved funding schools to employ tutors for students 
in primary and secondary schools via private companies, initially to help young people “catch 
up” after school closures. The total spent was £594 million by 2021 (Public Accounts 
Committee, 2023) and a further £349 million in 2022-23 (DfE, 2022). “Tutoring” in this context 
means students having additional one-to-one or two-to-sessions before or after school, online or 
in person, organised by their school. Previously and traditionally tutoring has been understood as 
something paid for by parents, in addition to normal schooling, that takes place in homes or in 
tutor centres run by private companies (Exley, 2025). It is associated with middle-class parenting, 
for example when used to prepare children for school entrance exams and is regarded in the 
research literature as a method of social reproduction (Holloway & Kirby, 2020). The NTP 
therefore potentially represented a marked change in the nature of the tutoring industry in 
England.  

During the four years of operation, the NTP evolved, with different rules on how 
schools could spend the money and changes to the roles played within the programme by the 
private sector to deliver the tutors and quality assurance of tutor companies. In this paper, we 
explore the NTP as an example of heterarchical governance—a term that references a more 
polycentric system of state governance and aims “to capture the operations and influence of new 
epistemic communities and knowledge networks” (Wilkins & Mifsud, 2024, p. 352). We use a 
genealogical approach drawing on Foucault (1977, 1981) to first examine how the NTP operated 
and the background to the key concepts shaping its introduction. We then analyse the network 
of private operators involved in the NTP as an example of privatisation that embeds the private 
sector as a critical and powerful player in and part of the process of governance.  

It should be noted that the participation of private actors in the design and delivery of 
state education in England is not a new phenomenon. The recent history of the privatisation of 
state education in England can arguably be traced to the landmark 1988 Education Reform Act 
(Bailey & Ball, 2016), which introduced what Ball and Youdell (2007) conceptualise as 
endogenous and exogenous forms of privatisation (also, see Ball, 2008). While the former refers 
to internal reforms to the practices, culture, and values of the education system to render it more 
market-like (such as the introduction of choice, competition between schools, and performance 
management), the latter refers to the opening up of public education services to participation by 
private actors, in the form of funding, management, regulation, and delivery (Gutierrez & Exley, 
2025). Existing research in England has explored this ongoing and increasing private sector 
participation in relation to, for example, independent state schools known as academies and free 
schools (Ball, 2009a; Olmedo, 2014; West, 2014), the teacher training organisation Teach First 
(Bailey, 2015; Olmedo et al., 2013), and online learning and resource platforms such as Oak 
National Academy (Peruzzo et al., 2022), which was conceived and launched during the COVID 
pandemic. 

We begin by introducing the NTP, before we explain the theoretical framework for the 
paper and our methodology. We then set out our findings through the genealogy and network 
analysis. We argue throughout that the NTP represented a significant step change in the nature 
and extent of the involvement of the private sector in educational governance. 

 



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 33  No. 60  SPECIAL ISSUE 4 

 

 

Introducing the NTP 
 
Initially described as part of the UK government’s “£1 billion COVID Catch Up Plan”, 

the NTP began as a response to school closures during the pandemic. It was announced in June 
2020, as concerns about the “lost learning” of young people grew. The first stage of the 
programme involved schools receiving funds to buy in tutoring from “tuition partners,” who 
were already established tuition agencies around the country and abroad. This was organised by 
the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF).1 This tutoring involved tutors providing one-to-
one or small group sessions to students from Year 1 to Year 11 in England (age 5–16), either in 
person or online. A second strand of the NTP involved academic mentors in schools in the most 
deprived areas, who would be “in-house” mentors, based in schools, providing intensive catch-
up support. Original estimates were that the NTP would involve 15,000 tutors offering tuition to 
around 250,000 children (Department for Education [DfE], 2020). 

The NTP continued in the academic year 2021–22 and beyond, with the final year of 
operation being 2023–24. The government awarded the contract for operating the programme to 
different organisations and shifted the emphasis from COVID catch-up to reducing the 
attainment gap between disadvantaged young people and their peers in their promotion of the 
programme. There was also a shift over time in how much autonomy schools were afforded in 
making decisions about how NTP money was spent. There was a decline in the proportion of 
schools taking up the NTP funding, from a peak of 87% in 2021-22 (NAO, 2023), largely due to 
funding issues (NFER, 2024), and the programme stopped in 2024.  

Estimates of the overall impact of the 5 million courses (each made up of multiple 
tutoring sessions) taken during the years the NTP operated, based on assumptions from other 
studies of the impact of tutoring, suggest significant gains in terms of grade improvements and 
thus future earnings (Savours & Rodriguez, 2023). However, evaluations of the programme were 
equivocal about its impact, and there remain significant doubts about the value for money it 
provided (Styles, 2024). There were also criticisms voiced by school leaders about the NTP, and 
the external providers used as tuition partners (Weale, 2021). These and the evolution of the 
programme are discussed in more detail in the genealogy section below. The NTP is a clear 
example of government’s turn to the private sector to help during a time of crisis. Our interest 
lies in understanding the NTP as a form of privatisation of the education sector and this informs 
our theoretical framework.  

Theoretical Framework 
 
The analysis developed below draws upon a toolbox of theoretical, conceptual, and 

methodological resources. Our key theorisations concern privatisation and heterarchical state 
governance, which we discuss below. To operationalise these theorisations, we deploy the 
methodologies of genealogy and network analysis, which we return to in the methodology 
section.    

Processes of privatisation are increasingly global in reach and scope, with national 
governments “more open and willing to incorporate the support and policy influence of 
different actors from the private sphere and third sector in the delivery and governing of 
education” (Olmedo et al, 2013, p. 492). With regards to the specific case of the NTP, while it is 
important that such privatising impulses and practices are understood within the context of the 
COVID pandemic, and can be understood as an example of “disaster capitalism” (Klein, 2007), 
it is not surprising that the UK government turned to the private sector for support at this time. 

 
1 The Education Endowment Foundation is a charity with the aim of “supporting schools, colleges, and 
early years settings to improve teaching and learning through better use of evidence” (EEF, n.d./a). The 
Foundation was founded in 2011 with a £125 million grant from the Department for Education. 



A Network Policy Analysis of England’s National Tutoring Programme 5 

 

While this was certainly a time of significant crisis, such a response was a continuation of what 
are now well-established modes of government and governing characteristic of what Ball (2009b) 
terms the “governance turn” in education. This “turn” refers to the shift from government to 
governance; that is, from centralised and bureaucratic government to governance in and by 
networks and heterarchies (Ball, 2009a). It is worth noting that privatisation and governance are 
treated here both separately and together: while an understanding of governance necessitates an 
understanding of the different ways in which public education and policy are being privatised, it 
will still be fruitful to separate them at times to ensure conceptual clarity. We attend to 
privatisation first and then return to heterarchical governance and policy networks. 

Privatisation 

Privatisation has been a key strategy adopted by national governments in reforming their 
public education systems. Both the modes of, and rationale for, reform have been substantially 
informed by neoliberal discourse which critiques excessive state intervention and regulation, 
encompassed by the mantra “more market, less state.” Our interest here is the observation that 
privatisation is increasingly global in scope (Gutierrez & Exley, 2025; Verger et al., 2017). Indeed, 
the conceptualisation and identification of a global education industry (GEI) is an attempt to 
capture a significant change in the impact and scope of privatisation in education. It “explicitly 
focuses on the transnational dimension of education marketisation and on the emergence of new 
global businesses specialising on education services and products” (Verger et al, 2017, p. 31). 
Verger et al. mark out some of the key characteristics of the GEI that evidence an escalation of 
the influence of different forms and modalities of privatisation. They point to an industry that 
features: a network of private, for-profit and not-for-profit organisations; a heterogeneous 
collection of actors including large multinational corporations involved in the distribution of 
educational goods and services, management consultancies, international organisations such as 
the OECD, IT companies and national actors, philanthropists, charities, think tanks; 
integrations, mergers and acquisitions between companies and organisations; global scale 
operations including cross-border supply of services such as online learning technologies, 
assessment services, professional development; competition between businesses and providers in 
a way that incentivises business-like practices; access to financial capital markets to support 
expansion (Verger et al., 2016, p. 12). In this context, the state often has a central role as a 
connecting agent, notably in the “initiation and mediation of networks” (Parreira Dol Amaral & 
Thompson, 2019c, pp. 276 and 281 cited in Gericke, 2022, p. 842) and heterarchical relations 
(Ball, 2009a). It is through such networks and heterarchies, moreover, that the GEI operates at 
both a national and international level extending and intensifying the reach and influence of the 
private sector. Such influence and reach extend to policy and policymaking itself, to the very 
work of government from policy development/conception through to provision—that is, 
privatisation of and through policy. Taken together, these different modes, forms and scales of 
privatisation reflect not merely changes in service provision and policy influence, but more 
significantly changes in the forms and modalities of the state. To develop this, we now turn to 
new governance, policy networks and heterarchies.  

Governance, Policy Networks and Heterarchies 

We conceptualise governance as representing a shift in the form and modalities of the 
state and a change in the very operation of government, whereby the state is increasingly reliant 
on a diverse range of policy actors in policy processes, from planning and development, through 
to delivery. This is a “reshaping ...[of] the traditional image of policy processes in sub-national, 
national and supranational politics” (Ball, 2010a, p. 124), and through which new interests and 
voices—especially from the private sector—are represented and established within (global) 
policy processes. Jessop’s (2004) notion of the “competition state” is relevant here, in which the 
state’s role has become to structure opportunities for global capital to expand and operate, 



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 33  No. 60  SPECIAL ISSUE 6 

 

 

reflecting “a shift in the fundamental structures of the real world and a corresponding shift in the 
centre of gravity around which policy cycles move” (Jessop, 1998, p. 32). Scholars have proposed 
the concept of heterarchical network governance (Ball & Junemann, 2012; Jessop, 1998) to try 
and capture the sense that the forms of private sector involvement in previously state-run 
endeavours, such as education, do not represent a withdrawal of the state but rather a 
reconfiguration of the state; in effect the privatisation of education facilitates the spread of 
powerful networks of private and non-state actors (NSAs) and organisations that constitute 
systems of new, more light-touch forms of political governance. Heterarchies are a complex 
organisational form “somewhere between hierarchy and network” (Ball & Junemann, 2012, p. 
138). They “enlarge the range of actors involved in shaping and delivering policy” (Newman, 
2001, p. 125) and represent and establish a “polycentric state” and mode of governance which 
involves a “catalyzing of all sectors—public, private and voluntary—into action to solve their 
community’s problems” (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992, p. 20). Heterarchical governance combines 
elements of previous forms of governance, such as the “anarchic” market form and hierarchical 
authority of the nation/territorial state (Jessop, 1998), with networked forms of organisation, 
resulting in “more flexible, asymmetric, heterarchical relationships, within which responsibilities 
and processes of decision-making are shared by a heterogeneous mix of old and new policy 
actors” (Avelar & Ball, 2019, p. 20). While the resulting shape of heterarchies is that of a 
network, or more precisely, “a web of interconnected and interdependent political and economic 
networks” (Olmedo et al, 2013, p. 493), it should be noted that the term “network” is contested 
and can be misleading. Indeed, the extent to which our analysis of the NTP and the 
organisations and relationships involved can be characterised as a network is open to question 
and further scrutiny. As Gjaltema et al. (2019) note, “the literature differs greatly about what 
constitutes a network. In some cases, networks are abstract groups of actors without clear 
linkages, whereas in other cases networks are very well-defined groups of interdependent actors” 
(p. 1767). Perhaps our analysis leans more towards the former than latter conceptualisation of 
the networked heterarchical relationships of the NTP, although further research is needed here.  

Methodology 

In this paper we employ two distinct methods—genealogy and network analysis—which 
we use both separately and together to understand the NTP as a form of privatisation within the 
education system in England. Our aim here is to explore what the NTP represents in terms of 
the evolving role of the private sector in the policy process of a neoliberal state, particularly in 
the context of a global crisis.     

Foucault’s genealogical method, as he explains in Discipline and Punish (1977) and The 
History of Sexuality (1981), involves writing histories that reject certainty and universals. Genealogy 
is “concerned with the processes, procedures and apparatuses by which truth and knowledge are 
produced” (Tamboukou, 1999, p. 202). It is a way of writing a history which views the present as 
an episode, not the culmination of a linear process of historical development. Engaging with a 
“critique of the present” as a moment in the struggles between different ideas involves taking a 
position marked by “profound scepticism”, which is “directed to the present, in particular to 
those truths, ideas and “constants” that appear to have or present themselves as having no 
history” (Jones, 2022, p. 12). A genealogical approach challenges accepted truths about what 
happened and aims in Tamboukou’s (1999) words, to “provide a counter-memory that will help 
subjects recreate the historical and practical conditions of their present existence” (p.203). While 
our brief genealogy does not lay claim to such an achievement, we do explore the alternative 
ideas that were forgotten in the focus on children “catching up” during the pandemic. It is 
important to remember, as COVID passes into memory, that there was nothing inevitable about 
the focus on learning loss and the resolution of this through tutoring. As Jones (2022) writes, 



A Network Policy Analysis of England’s National Tutoring Programme 7 

 

genealogy “shows that things are not as necessary as all that and may well have been, and 
critically therefore could be, different” (p. 12).  

Foucault (1977) used the terms descent and emergence, drawing on Nietzsche, to describe 
the different elements of genealogy. Descent is an exploration of multiple beginnings rather than a 
single origin, through an objective examination of the complexity of ideas. It focuses on 
heterogeneity, rather than a linear passage of progress. Emergence focuses on the way in which an 
idea or an event emerges into a field at a particular time, while other ideas disappear. Considering 
this subjugation and disappearance of “disqualified knowledges” is as important as exploring 
those that gain prominence. The result of a genealogy is never to find a “real truth” or produce a 
better history, but to challenge and critique the production of narratives that obscure the 
production of and insubstantiation of power. This method influences our genealogy of the NTP.  

Our network policy analysis follows the approach of network ethnography (Ball & 
Junemann, 2012; Hogan, 2016). This approach aims to understand the nature and features of 
heterarchical network governance and often focusses on the relationship between state and 
NSAs within given policy networks. It does this by paying “close attention to the organisations 
and actors within a field, to the chains, paths and connections that join these actors and to 
situations and events in which policy ideas are mobilized and assembled” (Santori & Jin, 2023, p. 
509). Network ethnography can involve a combination of different techniques for data gathering 
but often paramount are “deep and extensive” internet searches (Santori & Jin, 2023, p. 510). 
Our network analysis of the three organisations involved in the final iteration of the NTP is 
based on internet searches that entailed a “deep dive” of the organisations’ websites as well as 
related DfE and NTP web pages.  

The initial aim and focus were to identify and trace the involvement of these three key 
organisations in the management, design and delivery of the tutoring programme. As it became 
clear that we were investigating organisations with considerable global presence, our search 
widened to explore the nature of these organisations, particularly their relationships to a wider 
international network characterised as a global education industry. This entailed expanding the 
search to financial and “professional” websites such as LinkedIn as well as financial news and 
journalism. Combining our searches, we were able to build up a more complete and multi-angled 
understanding of the way in which these organisations have evolved and currently operate.  

Our network analysis provides us with an initial understanding of the way the NTP has 
evolved and the role of certain organisations in this. This analysis is based on publicly available 
documents and websites, and this brings with it limitations to what we can claim. We have not 
probed into what might be described as the “lived reality” of the relationship between 
government and the private sector—its various alliances and partnerships. Undoubtedly, 
interviews with and observations of the people who inhabit these networks would bring a 
different and additional perspective to this current work. What we have tried to do is a 
preliminary mapping that sheds some light on the way that the private sector became part of the 
architecture of state education policy during and post COVID-19. Our analysis has also explored 
the way that these organisations’ websites, documents, and practices function as sites that 
constitute a powerful milieu in which an understanding of what tutoring is, what it is for, and 
what it should look like is produced. This aspect of our analysis owes much to Ball’s “policy as 
discourse” approach which understands policy documents, texts, and websites as socially 
constitutive. The focus of this kind of analysis is on the work the text does to create and sustain 
certain imaginaries, values and truths. We offer an analysis of that milieu as a medium through 
which neoliberal tropes and values about education are reproduced and reiterated. 

  



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 33  No. 60  SPECIAL ISSUE 8 

 

 

Findings 

A Brief Genealogy of the NTP  

In line with Foucault’s (1977, 1981) principles for a genealogy, we begin this section by 
focusing on the contemporary situation—a “critique of the present”—before exploring the 
process by which we arrived at the current context. The NTP, as it operated 2023–2044, was a 
system of funding for schools based on the level of children eligible for the Pupil Premium (PP)2. 
In the fourth year of the NTP this funding was set at a minimum of £67.50 per PP-eligible pupil 
(DfE, 2023). This money was intended to fund 50% of the cost of tuition programmes for all 
pupils, with the school paying the remainder using their usual PP funding or other budgets. At 
this stage, schools were able to use the funding in three possible ways:  to access tuition provided 
by external private tutoring organisations (“tuition partners”) that have been quality assured by 
Tribal Group, a private company; to employ academic mentors, who are “in-house staff 
members recruited on your behalf by Cognition Education, and employed by your school to 
provide intensive support to pupils” (DfE, 2023); to fund tuition led by school staff (either staff 
or those employed for tuition specifically).   

In this formation, quality assurance undertaken by the private providers Tribal and 
Cognition Education is integral to the NTP. The programme could be used to pay private 
tutoring companies, but choice is restricted to those that are quality assured. Alternatively, 
individual staff from within the school, current or new, could be used as academic mentors. The 
DfE suggests for the latter that these people could be “supply teachers and support staff, or 
retired teachers” (DfE, 2024). Eligible tuition could be conducted in flexible ways, either in 
person or online, taking place outside of normal school hours, such as after school, at weekends, 
during school breaks or during the summer holidays. There were restrictions on the use of the 
funding; however, in primary schools, tuition could only be for the core subjects of English and 
Mathematics; in secondaries, it could be used for tuition in English, mathematics, science, 
humanities and modern foreign languages (the subjects prioritised in other policy such as the 
EBacc3 measure). Tuition could be used for children who are learning English as an additional 
language, but not for direct English language teaching. Thus, while there was some flexibility in 
how the money was spent, there were also limitations. These were enforced through the 
requirement that schools keep data on how tutoring happens and how the money is spent. 
Moreover, the DfE pointed out that the NTP funding will feature in school inspections, noting 
“Ofsted will inspect all schools by summer 2025, during which process they may look at 
available tutoring data” (DfE, 2023).   

The NTP as it operated in 2023–24 represented a new front in the advance of 
privatisation within the education sector in England. Government funding was spent on tutors 
from private companies, via schools, while at the same time private organisations were charged 
with important roles within this system—providing quality assurance of tutors (Tribal) and 
academic mentors (Cognition Education). It can be seen as, in Foucauldian terms, a discontinuity 
in the established set of relations between schools and government. State funding is explicitly 
earmarked for the involvement of the private sector in the provision of private tuition for 
individual students. Tutoring is no longer positioned as supplementary and personally secured 
educational support, it is promoted and prioritised as a form of legitimate and indeed invaluable 

 
2 Pupil Premium is additional funding paid to schools per child who is eligible for free school meals, or 
has been in the last six years, and those children currently or previously looked after by a local authority 
or other state care.  
3 The EBacc measure is an accountability mechanism which records in performance tables the proportion 
of students attaining the benchmark grade at age 16 in five subjects (English language and literature, 
maths, the sciences, geography or history, and a language). The EBacc (English Baccalaureate) was 
introduced to encourage schools to focus on these “academic” subjects.  
 



A Network Policy Analysis of England’s National Tutoring Programme 9 

 

aspect of state education. Furthermore, the decision to focus on tuition marks a significant 
departure for the UK government in terms of the definition of who is appropriate to teach 
children. Traditionally, qualified teachers were the only possibility, but this has eroded through 
policy allowing higher level teaching assistants able to take classes, and schools classed as 
academies not having to employ qualified teachers. Within the NTP, extra time spent with 
external tutors, rather than with teachers or teaching assistants they know and trust, was 
presented as equally if not more valuable (DfE, 2023). However, a key aspect of this final 
iteration of the NTP was that schools were also able to use the funding to subsidise their own staff 
to do tutoring, or to employ new staff for this purpose. This is a fundamentally different model 
from where the NTP began in 2020 and suggests a degree of ad hocery in the evolution of the 
NTP, which is significant. To understand this evolution, we need to return to the beginnings of 
the programme during the COVID pandemic, when the NTP was promoted as a response to a 
specific policy problem.   

In 2020, the dominant idea during the early phase of school closures was that children 
would “lose learning.” This was largely based on data from tests taken by children before and 
after long summer holidays, which showed that learning was lost when children were out of 
school (Harmey & Moss, 2021). In contrast, as Harmey and Moss argued at the time, the 
literature on “learning disruption,” drawing on case studies of sudden unplanned school closures 
due to natural disasters or epidemics, was far more pertinent to the COVID pandemic situation. 
Indeed, during COVID schools quickly produced home learning resources and online learning 
systems, which meant that many children continued to receive some schooling; at the same time, 
children whose parents were key workers and those deemed “vulnerable” were able to attend 
schools, which remained open for them. As a result, it was not simple to estimate how much 
learning children had “lost” and which children had lost it. For example, the variation in 
children’s access to laptops and other devices to use for online learning was a notable problem; 
the “digital divide” meant that some children were unable to access these lessons. Moreover, 
research conducted with those on the ground during the early months of the pandemic found 
that school leaders’ main priorities were ensuring that children were safe and well fed. The 
burden of caring for children fell unevenly on some schools, of course, so that potential gaps 
between disadvantaged children and their peers were a major concern (Moss et al., 2020). Thus, 
although there were questions around the nature, understanding, and extent of learning loss, this 
policy problem nevertheless emerged as the key concern of the time. Further, in this emergence 
phase, to use Foucault’s term, learning loss was constructed as important for all children, but 
especially for disadvantaged children. The terms “catch-up” and “learning loss” at this point 
“gained political and social value and heft” (Platten, 2024, p. 19, emphasis in original). At the 
same time, other ideas were subjugated in governmental discourse, such as the need to address 
issues of child poverty.  

As the policy problem was constructed primarily as one of children needing to “catch 
up” on what they had lost, the policy solution of tutoring was constructed in response. Leaving 
aside the idea of catching up which suggests pre-defined requirements to be reached by certain 
ages—akin to a race where some children fall behind (Bradbury, 2021)—we consider here in 
more detail the way in which tutoring was constructed as the ideal remedy for learning loss.  

To understand the ease with which large-scale tutoring emerged as a policy solution to 
learning loss, we need to look further back at the wider influences and evolutions that were 
already underway in this field. Drawing on Foucault’s descent (1977), it is important to note that 
tutoring has a long history in England but is strongly associated with particular groups of parents 
and as entirely separate from the state school system (Holloway & Kirby, 2020). Private tutors, 
usually individuals who attend a child’s home, are used by some families to help children prepare 
for entrance exams to selective and private schools at age 11, and to help children with exams at 
age 16 and 18. There are also tutoring companies that offer group tuition in an external location, 
which are cheaper. They are also used to complement general schooling by some families, 



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though the high cost prohibits widespread use. Tutors are not accredited by any organisation and 
do not have to have a teaching qualification or experience; this is an unregulated market. An 
alternative form of tutoring, where tutoring included working with children within schools, gained 
traction in the 2010s, however. Notably, the EEF, who are a government-funded body charged 
with assessing effective approaches in education based on evidence, promoted this form of 
tutoring to reduce the disadvantage gap, although they defined the security of the evidence as 
“moderate” (EEF, n.d./b). Thus, the term “tutoring” had blurred meanings, providing a useful 
ambiguity when it was presented as a solution. Tutoring for everyone, and particularly the 
disadvantaged, suggested a levelling of the playing field between those who traditionally 
benefitted from it, and everyone else.  

In addition to this shifting perception of tutoring, the construction of tuition as a 
solution was bolstered by the argument that this solution was evidence-based. When the NTP 
was announced, the then-secretary of state for education referred to funding for “measures 
proven to be effective, particularly for those who are most disadvantaged” (DfE, 2020), and a 
link to the EEF guide on effective tutoring was provided. This suggests that the effectiveness of 
tutoring was one “truth” already established by 2020, even though the EEF was not overly 
confident about the evidence. This shift in the understanding of the term provided an ideal 
context for the NTP to be presented as a viable solution to learning loss.  

Bearing in mind this background of ambiguity, we now turn to the significance of the 
NTP as a form of privatisation. As noted, the programme changed through the four years of 
operation, with first EEF and then the company Randstad operating the programme, before the 
contract was awarded on to Tribal, Cognition Education, and also the Education Development 
Trust (EDT) for the final two years. As a policy solution, the NTP was marked by a degree of 
discontinuity that contrasted with the long-term ambitions to bring about a “tutoring 
revolution,” with “long term reform to the educational secto,” as stated when it was announced 
(DfE, 2020). One continuity, however, was the reliance on the private sector as a solution. 
Turning to the private sector was a common response during COVID—seen also in the use of 
private companies to provide the Track and Trace system, for example—but, as in other sectors, 
this move was not without its attendant problems. In particular, there were issues during the 
second year of operation under Randstad. The format remained largely the same, but a major 
problem arose with the volume of tutors available, given the high level of demand from schools 
who wanted to use the NTP funding. A Guardian investigation found one tutoring company was 
paying 17-year-old students in Sri Lanka £1.57 an hour to provide tutoring to pupils in England, 
raising ethical questions (Weale, 2021). A report in 2022 written by the House of Commons 
Education Committee was critical of the NTP under Randstad, describing it as a “bureaucratic 
nightmare” (HoC Education Committee, 2022), and they were criticised for failing to operate an 
effective online tuition hub.  

In applying evidence from tutoring in “normal” times, the NTP programme also ignored 
the particularities of the time such as the unique challenges of re-entering school after the 
closures. Research in 2020 and 2021 with primary schools found that headteachers rejected the 
need for external tutors, preferring instead to use their existing staff (Bradbury et al., 2022). For 
many children, the greatest challenges at this point were related to adjusting back to school 
attendance after months away, and so additional tutoring sessions online with tutors 
unconnected to their school were not an appropriate solution. Privatisation at this point was 
failing to resolve the policy problem of lost learning, leading to the need for further revisions to 
the NTP. The incoherence and ad hocery continued, perhaps because of a misdiagnosis of the 
original problem schools faced and a failure to listen to those on the ground (Moss & Bradbury, 
2021). 

By the academic year 2022–23, the contract for the NTP operated on a different basis, as 
explained above, with private companies used primarily at the mezzanine level to ensure quality, 
though private tutoring companies still provided some of the actual tutoring sessions too. 



A Network Policy Analysis of England’s National Tutoring Programme 11 

 

Significantly, schools were given more autonomy on how to spend their NTP funding and were 
able to employ their own staff. This marked a fundamental shift in the operation of the NTP and 
undermined some of the logic of the first two years; no longer was the private sector the only 
solution. It remained important, however, in a quality assurance role. This change represents 
what some might regard as the adaptation of policy during a time of crisis to better serve 
children’s needs, while an alternative viewpoint might see the final formation of the NTP as an 
attempt to preserve the role of private companies within a system which could have simply 
delivered extra funding straight to schools. Here, the useful ambiguity of the term allowed this 
change to seem logical, especially after the first two years of the NTP.  

In writing a brief genealogy of the NTP, the shift towards allowing schools to spend the 
funding on their own staff is highly important. In doing so, the NTP wrote the story of its own 
demise. Funding became another way to pay existing or past staff for extra hours, without the 
bureaucracy of the external systems. There seemed to be some implicit acknowledgement that 
the private sector could not solve the problem of learning loss alone, and that schools’ expertise 
might be better used to address the issues children faced. The construction of the final iteration 
of the NTP must be understood within this context, of a plan which has only partially worked, 
which has been altered to make it more effective in ways which fundamentally undermine the 
principle of private sector efficiency. In some ways, then, the evolution of the NTP can be seen 
as a failure of privatisation; however, as we discuss below, this is not the complete story.  

In keeping with the genealogical approach that Foucault argued should avoid neat 
unifying explanations for events, we can see the evolution of the NTP as ad hoc policy making, 
rather than as a well thought-through plan to impose further privatisation onto the sector or to 
denigrate the need for qualified teachers. It does represent, however, a failed attempt to shift the 
sector towards more private provision, based on the antecedents that made tutoring more 
ambiguous; these opened up the possibility and intelligibility of the NTP as policy solution to 
learning loss. This “win” for the state sector is only one part of complex pattern of gains 
afforded by the NTP, as we argue in the following section on the final iteration of the NTP.  

Policy Analysis: NTP  

In this section of the paper, we want to focus on the last iteration of the NTP and on the 
role of three key organisations: Cognition Education, part of the Cognition Learning Group, 
Tribal Group, and the Education Development Trust (EDT). Between 2022 and 2024 these 
organisations were responsible for devising the criteria and guidelines that determined whether 
tutoring organisations or individuals were accepted onto the NTP as tuition partners and 
academic mentors. They were given considerable agency in shaping the NTP and whilst the 
programme ended in 2024, we argue that their involvement represented a significant extension 
of the involvement of the private sector in England’s policy process that can be understood as a 
form of heterarchical governance. It constituted a mezzanine level of governance which sat 
between government itself and those private tutoring organisations that delivered tutoring into 
schools and as such constituted a significant arena of delegated power. Further, our analysis 
situates these organisations as part of a wider network of global actors characterised as the global 
education industry that promote and normalise a neoliberal vision of education.  

Mezzanine-Level Governance 

Tribal, Cognition Education, and the EDT were appointed by government to be 
responsible for recruiting, vetting, training, and supporting a myriad of grassroots organisations 
and actors to provide tutoring and mentoring at the “chalk” and ‘screen” face. Their quality 
assurance responsibility also lay in facilitating contacts and contracts between appropriate 
teaching partners/mentors and schools. Tribal were appointed in 2022 by the DfE to become “a 
delivery partner…to quality assure all NTP Tuition Partners” (Tribal Group, 2024a). This meant 
that any tuition group that wished to deliver tuition for the NTP needed to apply to Tribal to 



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become an approved NTP tuition partner. Tribal developed a framework that they used to assess 
all prospective candidates prior to their acceptance onto the “find a tuition partner” service, 
which is broken down on their website (Tribal Group, 2024b). The criteria listed inevitably 
legitimate a certain kind of tuition partner; they identify three key areas of focus: organisation, 
safeguarding, and quality of provision (Tribal Group, 2024b). Across those areas, various 
requirements are identified such as the need for; a “clear governance and management 
structure,” “well-identified lines of accountability,” established human resources policies, 
“accurate and timely monitoring reports,” regular observation of tutors, and evaluation of their 
performance “against a competency framework” (Tribal Group, 2024b). Various forms of 
documentation could be provided by tutoring companies to Tribal to evidence successful 
fulfilment of these criteria, such as an organisation process manual, induction handbook, staff 
behaviour policy, diversity and inclusion policies, and marketing plans and materials. These 
criteria point to organisations that already function as established businesses replete with 
management and organisational structures and practices. The full list of requirements is 
extensive, which is arguably desirable; however, they undoubtedly favour certain types of tuition 
partners. Moreover, these requirements are productive and actively shape the market of 
providers since organisations need to model themselves in line with these stipulations to secure 
contracts. In respect of this, it is notable that there does not seem to be a requirement to discuss 
an organisations’ pedagogical or educational approach.  

Cognition Education’s role on the NTP was to “oversee the recruitment of well-qualified 
people to work as academic mentors and deploy them to schools most in need of additional in-
class tutoring resource” (Cognition Education, 2024a). Legacy NTP webpages give some 
indication of the job description and application process. The NTP website introduces you to 
the application process with Cognition Education, which involves an online 30-minute interview 
including competency-based questions and a screening process. Once accepted, you undertake 
an online training programme delivered by the EDT (NTP, n.d. a). It is difficult to know the 
criteria for acceptance on to the scheme beyond having a minimum of three A levels (grade A*-
C or equivalent) and Grade 4 GCSE English and Maths, as this does not appear to be published. 
However, the job description explicitly says:  

You don’t need to have experience of working in education to become an Academic 
Mentor as our fully funded training will ensure that you have all the knowledge you need 
for your new role. As long as you have enthusiasm and a passion for making a difference 
to the lives of young people, we’ll cover the rest. (NTP, n.d., b)  
 

It is notable here that there is not simply an omission of reference to views on educational 
approaches or pedagogy, it is actively cited as of no concern. 

The EDT provided an NTP training course for school-led tutors and academic mentors. 
This was a four-week course accessed completely online. There were several pathways on the 
NTP training course and aspects of the training aligned with principles from the Early Career 
Framework and Teachers’ Standards (Education Development Trust, 2024a) and assessment and 
certification has been designed and endorsed by the Chartered College of Teaching, an 
independent professional body for teachers (Education Development Trust, 2024b). The EDT 
also offered a “dedicated online platform” that gave school leaders access to “resources, official 
guidance, and best-practice recommendations” designed to help them improve the tutoring 
outcomes in their schools (Education Development Trust, 2024b).  

It is difficult to ascertain exactly what the training course involved, not least because of 
the multiple pathways, but there is clear evidence of liaison with the Chartered College of 
Teaching and statutory guidelines on teacher training and development (Education Development 
Trust 2024a, 2024c). This presents a blurred picture of the design and nature of the training 
indicating that this aspect of the NTP sits in a particularly complex in-between, intermediary 
space between government, other NSAs and tutors at the chalk/screen face. The EDT appears 



A Network Policy Analysis of England’s National Tutoring Programme 13 

 

to be in a powerful position to shape an understanding of what constitutes good education, good 
tutoring or good pedagogy, without giving an account of how they understand these things.  

These three organisations are situated in a powerful middle space between government 
and potential tuition partners and mentors that we argue constitutes a mezzanine level of 
governance. This echoes Ball and Juneman’s (2012) understanding of the heterarchical form as 
drawing together “diverse horizontal and vertical links that permit different elements of the 
policy process to cooperate” (p. 138). They have a key role in the vetting, selection, training, and 
monitoring of services provided by tuition partners and mentors. They are not simply 
implementing government devised systems of accountability, they are actively involved in 
building those systems. In differing ways, they design, implement and monitor the systems of 
admissions and accountability that determine which individuals and organisations might gain 
employment through the NTP scheme. This means that the private sector is an arbiter of what 
constitutes adequate, relevant or good educational provision. They are responsible for defining 
and controlling a field of judgement which in turn legitimates and rewards certain values, 
practices, and approaches. Their decisions not only control access to a market of state education 
through the NTP but also shape that market.   

These organisations were strategically positioned not simply as gatekeepers but as gate-
builders. Through the design and implementation of various vetting, training, and monitoring 
practices, they were able to define what constituted appropriate and valid tutoring and select and 
deselect accordingly. This represents a significant extension of power to a network of private 
providers embedding them more deeply into the policy process. But as Parker (2007) states, 
these are not “just” networks. These networks function as and constitute a site of regulation, 
brought into being by public policy that distributed authority and power to NSAs. It may not 
represent an absolute delegation of the power of the state, but we argue that it indicates a shift in 
balance that privileges the private sector—a “disaggregation of state authority” (Peruzzo et al, 
2022, p. 12).  We suggest that what we witness with the creation of this mezzanine level is a form 
of “heterarchization of the state” (Jessop, 2016) which entails a “conception of policy as the 
collective effort of a set of players” (Olmedo, 2014, p. 253).  This raises significant questions 
about who this network of players is and what this level of involvement in state governance 
might represent.  

The Global Education Industry    

As discussed, the conceptualisation and identification of a GEI is an attempt to capture a 
step change in the impact and scope of privatisation in education. Through extensive networks, 
the GEI operates at both a national and international level extending and intensifying the reach 
and influence of the private sector. In the following section, we suggest that Tribal, Cognition 
Education, and the EDT can be considered as representative of the GEI. We consider their 
global reach and involvement with governments worldwide; their “key” people and the roles they 
play; the prevalence of acquisitions and mergers; the importance of edtech to their services and 
global reach.  

Global Networks, Government Contracts, Mergers, and Acquisitions. Tribal have 
offices in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, the Middle East, Philippines, and 
Malaysia and operate in 55 countries. Cognition Education is UK-based but is part of the 
Cognition Learning Group (CLG), which began in New Zealand and has six international 
offices. They operate in 30 countries world-wide. The EDT began life as the Centre for British 
Teachers in 1968 but now undertake work and consultancies in over 100 countries working as 
“trusted partners” alongside governments, states, and multiple organisations such as the Bill and 
Melinda Gates Foundation.   

The global presence of these organisations is integral to their “brands” and mention of 
their global reach features heavily on their websites. It is emphasised through the imagery and 
photographs that represent their activities in multiple countries. The relaunching and rebranding 



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of Tribal’s Education Services as Etio in 2024 makes repeated mention of their partnerships 
“worldwide” and “around the world” (Tribal Group, 2024c). Cognition Education refer to 
themselves as “global” providers of education consultancy and as transformers of “global 
education systems” (Cognition Education, 2024b). The EDT has numerous sections on their 
website reporting on their work in multiple different countries. Both Tribal (and their 
educational services arm, Etio) and Cognition Education draw attention to the work that they 
have done with the governments of multiple different countries, and both have previously 
secured contracts with the DfE (Noble, 2023; O’Brien, 2018; Tribal Group, 2024c). 

The CLG, of which Cognition Education is a part, has built up its portfolio of 
companies through a series of acquisitions which expand its reach and provision, presumably 
also its market share. Indeed, Cognition Education is one of four brands that is part of the CLG. 
Aligning with Verger et al.’s (2016) observation of the GEI’s propensity for integrations, 
mergers, and acquisitions, three of CLG’s four brands have been acquired over the past decade. 
CLG acquired Wavelength Learning—a company that produces digital content and publications 
for clients in 2015 (Wavelength Learning, 2024); Begin Bright —developers of educational 
programmes in 2016 (Begin Bright, 2024); and Aspire, a “leadership and management 
development consultancy agency,” in 2022 (Millward, 2022). These organisations have significant 
global presence that has been enhanced through expansion and acquisition. They are all 
involved, to some degree or another, with large multinational corporations and the education 
departments of various nation states. Their activities involve consultancy and policy advice and 
educational provision—they are involved at all stages of the policy process. Their activities and 
connections provide them with significant capital and leverage that is influential on the global 
education stage.  

Policy Entrepreneurs and Boundary Spanners. Tribal is a UK-based company, 
founded in 2000. The business has two key foci: students information systems (SIS) and 
inspection and review services. Tribal claim to be the UK’s number one provider of SIS to 
higher education (Tribal Group, 2024d). The founders have had successful careers as 
businessmen, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and finance directors in a variety of areas from healthcare, 
construction, investment, publishing, and more (Lawton, 2024; Pitman, 2024). The current CEO 
and management team are high-flyers with multi-sector backgrounds in the business world, 
particularly in technology (Tribal Group, 2024e). All very much fit the profile of what are often 
referred to as “boundary spanners,” individuals whose career trajectories move between different 
sectors and fields. Such individuals move easily between different business, social, and political 
worlds and can forge the connections and overlaps that foster networking activity often cited as 
fundamental to the success of modern-day business (Williams, 2002). This straddling of and 
movement between different worlds allows the boundary spanner to assume the role of an 
archetypal entrepreneur who offers innovative solutions to “wicked problems” (Ball & 
Junemann, 2012, p. 90). In this case, technological solutions are offered to pressing issues and 
concerns of accountability in the education sector. In this respect, Tribal and its founders and 
executive officers can also be understood as policy entrepreneurs for whom education policy 
operates as an opportunity to develop their business (Ball & Junemann, 2012, p. 140).  

The importance of edtech and financial and business connections is seen further in the 
profile of the CEO of the EDT, Dan Sandhu. His wider background is in the global education 
and commercial sector, as a founder, CEO, and investor in technology, education, and edtech.  
In 2020, he founded the EdTech Evidence Group to support evidence and efficacy in the edtech 
sector and in 2022, he was awarded the Asian Tech Pioneer award by Diversity UK (Education 
Development Trust, 2024a). A defining feature of his success appears to be his ability to take 
businesses from start up to global scale. In addition, Sandhu has worked in non-executive roles 
including sitting on the board of a Venture Capital Trust (Education Development Trust, 2024a). 
His cross-sector experience and ability to connect finance to education in lucrative and 



A Network Policy Analysis of England’s National Tutoring Programme 15 

 

successful ways evidences the significance of his role as a boundary spanner and policy 
entrepreneur.  

Another policy entrepreneur is Tina Lucas, CEO of CLG, who had previously worked 
successfully both as a CEO and in other capacities for several successful edu-businesses. Her 
forte is in developing international and overseas business, which directly led to her appointment 
at CLG in 2016 (Atherton, 2015). She was also the founder of STEM Tech Education, a 
company that managed several different STEM initiatives including hosting conferences and 
career events and a magazine for teachers (Culwick, 2014). This kind of activity resonates with 
the actions of the policy entrepreneur, drawing “actors and policy communities together and 
align[ing] perceptions to formulate common goals and interests” (Oborn et al, 2011, p. 340 cited 
in Ball & Junemann, 2012, p.140). The founders and executive staff at Tribal, EDT and CLG are 
clearly highly mobile policy entrepreneurs and boundary spanners moving from and on to other 
business opportunities in both related and contrasting fields. Their experience and expertise are 
located firmly within the world of business rather than education, and it is their ability to grow 
and expand business that legitimates their current positions.  

We suggest that all three organisations can be characterised as part of a global education 
industry. Their organisations’ history and practice speak to a form of sophisticated and strategic 
business development that is focused on global expansion through global networking, 
acquisitions, and venture capital. Their personnel exhibit as classic boundary spanners with 
career trajectories that show experience and expertise in multiple areas though often not 
education—a “cadre of “heterarchical actors” …defined by mobility and hybridity” (Ball & 
Juneman, 2012, p. 139).  

The involvement of these global actors and organisations in nation-state policy processes 
speaks to the international nature of heterarchical network governance (Ball, 2010b). Here, a 
global education industry is embedded as part of a strategic decision-making process in a nation-
state response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, the significance of the role of the state in 
identifying, selecting and establishing networks and partnerships to develop and deliver this 
policy is significant. Clearly, in the case of the NTP, the state was “an initiator or facilitator of 
private sector participation on a global scale” (Peruzzo et al, 2022, p. 13). 

Transforming Global Education Systems 

We have suggested so far that these organisations are situated in a powerful place in the 
policy process and can be understood as players in a global education industry—they represent 
the involvement of the global education industry in the governance of the English education 
system. Given the degree of influence that these organisations have it seems important to try and 
understand their vision and mission for education.  

One of the things that is immediately apparent in examining these organisations’ websites 
is that they see themselves as offering a new and innovative way of thinking about and doing 
education. This is clear, particularly for Tribal and Cognition Education/CLG, who have 
grandiose visions of their ability and mission to transform education globally, offering solutions, 
and offering change! The CLG are quite clear that they are “changing the way the world learns.” 
Their purpose is to “unleash the power of education to transform the lives of children, young 
people and adults around the world” (Cognition Learning Group, 2024a). Their goals are 
ambitious, and the rhetoric and imagery are exciting and inspiring. It is hard not to be carried 
along by their message of transformation and progress. Cognition Education situates the support 
and services they offer as transformative: “Cognition Education is transforming global education 
systems...” There is an almost evangelical belief in and commitment to the power of education to 
allow children, young people, adults, and businesses “to achieve anywhere.” Indeed, the message 
from the CEO Tina Lucas is that the transformative power of learning “has the ability to change 
lives, strengthen communities, build business and ultimately change our world” (Cognition 
Learning Group, 2024b). Similarly, Tribal’s message is one of empowerment and opportunity. 



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Their slogan is “Tribal—Empowering the world of education” (Tribal Group, 2024f). They have 
an “inspirational” video that presents education as an opportunity for empowerment. Characters 
who may have not succeeded in achieving what they wanted to in a traditional education system 
claim that when they are empowered, “education can take us anywhere.” The rebranded 
education/government services section of Tribal, Etio, intensifies this message and clarifies how 
they support and supplement government projects. Etio’s strapline is “Elevating Education, 
Everywhere” and they promote themselves as “the difference that turns ideas into realities” 
(Etio, 2024a).  

However, alongside this sits a rather different discourse. As compelling as their 
emancipatory visions are, in multiple ways the image of education they evoke on their websites, 
is of a more standardised neoliberal version of education. These companies are largely concerned 
with offering support to existing educational institutions and governments: consultancy firms 
whose success depends on their capacity to adapt themselves to their client’s visions of 
educations and client’s demands. Unsurprisingly therefore, the more detailed elaboration of their 
approach exhibits more pragmatic and business-oriented rhetoric and focus. Customer 
experience is of paramount importance. CLG are explicitly and unapologetically customer facing 
and describe their focus as to strive to ensure “the best outcomes and experiences of our clients 
and customers” (Cognition Learning Group, 2024a). Cognition Education are also customer 
focussed, promoting themselves in a supplementary or supportive role: “At Cognition Education 
we’re dedicated to helping our clients achieve their most pressing education goals” (Cognition 
Education, 2024b).  

Tribal emphasises how they can help institutions effectively improve their customer 
experience. “We empower our employees to make decisions that not only benefit you, but that 
also benefit your customers.” This “difference” they offer is centred on their expertise in 
strategic planning, accountability and knowledge improvement, technological expertise, and 
performance benchmarking. They exemplify and epitomise a neoliberal approach to education 
and draw on classic discourses of “evidence-based action,” “efficiency,” “excellence,” 
“effectiveness,” “impact,” and “expert insight” (Etio, 2024a). They offer a “tailored approach” 
that fetes “adaptability” and help all stakeholders to “understand the efficacy of education 
expenditures” (Etio, 2024b). Their “robust financial benchmark analysis.... provide[s] a 
comprehensive view of the return on investment...” (Etio, 2024c). Their goal is to prepare, equip 
and empower a “high performing workforce” (Etio, 2024d). Of course, it might be argued that 
drawing on this kind of discourse is largely expedient, “merely a pragmatic approach” that 
otherwise allows network members to promote what they may see as an alternative vision of 
education (Jones & Bradbury, 2022, p. 10). However, the fact remains that this discursive 
framing serves to reiterate and legitimate a peculiarly neoliberal imaginary of education.  

Tribal, Etio, Cognition Education, and CLG offer a quintessentially neoliberal vision of 
what “good” education should look like. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more apt description of 
the archetypal neoliberal homo economicus than the one promoted in the CLG’s four guiding 
principles “Be better, be impactful, be agile and be ambitious” (Cognition Learning Group, 
2024a). Despite these organisations’ enthusiastic visions of education, the nuts and bolts of what 
they promote is securely anchored in a highly technocratic, commercially attractive and 
thoroughly neoliberal vision. In many ways, it constitutes a “rolling out” of neoliberal values and 
truths. This is a quantifiable, datafied educative experience that features spreadsheets, impact 
assessments, and productivity. It is glossy, professional, and marketable; a product that is attuned 
to the current global neoliberal education field and is saleable in that field. The question arises 
then to what extent these organisations, responsible for recruitment, training, and monitoring on 
the NTP, are likely to choose academic mentors and tuition partners that align with and replicate 
this vision, and what then are the ramifications of this for schools and students.  

 



A Network Policy Analysis of England’s National Tutoring Programme 17 

 

Discussion 
 
Through our genealogy and network ethnography-influenced policy analysis, we have 

traced the way that learning loss was established as a key policy problem in the aftermath of 
COVID and how the use of private tutoring companies was positioned as the appropriate 
solution to this problem. As a basis for the NTP, this diagnosis was ill-conceived and did not 
reflect the reality on the ground for students, teachers, and schools (Moss & Harmey, 2021). 
Perhaps because of this, the NTP quickly ran into problems, which prompted a period of what 
can be understood as ad hocery in the evolution of NTP policy and programme. Whilst this may 
be seen as ultimately leading to the demise of the NTP and a certain degree of success for 
teachers and schools, it did not mark a consequential change in the level of private involvement. 
Instead, there were significant developments in the imbrication of the private sector in key 
aspects of state-funded education policy development and provision. This we consider to be a 
substantial and significant embedding of the private sector in state governance that goes beyond 
the more traditional and accepted forms of private sector involvement in state education. 
Conceptualising and articulating the novelty and importance of this is difficult.  

One of the key features of the integration of the private sector into public governance, as 
observed by Cone and Brogger (2020), is the provision by government of a “necessary leash” 
that in effect circumscribes and controls the activity and practices of the private sector. This 
leash commonly takes the form of “[c]ross institutional bench marking, measurements, testing 
and extensive standardisation technologies” (p. 386). In other words, the employment of private 
actors depends upon the creation and maintenance of some kind of standardised field of 
operation that governs the activities of multiple and diverse actor—a form of meta governance. 
The creation of this field in turn functions as a form of accountability. Interestingly, this does 
not seem to be the pattern or form of privatisation that characterises what has happened with 
the NTP in England. With the NTP, the private sector was directly tasked with providing its 
own leash as the very processes of standardisation and accountability that governed the 
involvement of private sector actors in the tutoring field were handed over to the private sector 
itself. This happened through the creation of a mezzanine level of operation that, over time, 
afforded considerable autonomy and control to three key organisations. In controlling the 
selection, vetting, training, and monitoring of tuition partners and academic mentors, these 
organisations were positioned not merely as gatekeepers but also as gate builders. They were not 
brought in to deliver existing accountability, training, or monitoring systems; they both devised 
and delivered these systems. This position afforded them considerable influence over shaping 
and legitimating a market of state-funded education providers. This represents a step change in 
the nature and extent of privatisation of the policy process as their activities go beyond advice 
and consultancy and beyond delivery. It is a more substantial and significant embedding of the 
private sector further up the chain of command.  

To try to grasp the significance of this, it is critical to have a clear idea about the nature 
of such organisations. Our analysis here makes it apparent that these intermediary organisations 
can be situated as part of a global education industry, characterised by its global scale operations, 
its combination of for-profit and not-for-profit actors, the prevalence of acquisitions and 
mergers, and personnel whose expertise spans multiple areas and whose background and 
experience is business oriented. Allied to these features, we also see the promotion and 
legitimation of a peculiarly neoliberal vision of education with the well-worn tropes of 
managerialism, performativity, accountability, and datafication. Given the influential position that 
these organisations have in selecting and monitoring tutoring companies, we simply note their 
power to reinforce and reward this imaginary of the educative experience.  This chimes with 
Parreira Dol Amaral and Thompson’s observation (2019) that the GEI is heavily invested in 
changing our ideas about what a good education looks like.  



Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 33  No. 60  SPECIAL ISSUE 18 

 

 

As globally situated players, Cognition Education, Tribal, and the EDT were able to use 
their business expertise and international experience in planning, accountability and technology 
to benefit from the policy opportunity that was the NTP. In doing so, they acquired considerable 
experience of operating at a new and powerful level of education governance. It is perhaps 
impossible to conjecture on the significance of this for these organisations. Our concern regards 
what this represents for the nature of governance in the English education system. 

Heterarchical state governance references the shift towards a polycentric state—“a de-
governmentalisation of the state” (Rose, 1996) in which new NSAs, notably from the private 
sector, are imbricated in the act of governing. We suggest that our analysis shows that the NTP 
has afforded the global education industry a significant step up in its level of involvement in 
England’s education governance. Indeed, it is alarming to see the relative ease with which a crisis 
generated an opportunity for global capital to establish a precedent for such extensive and high-
level involvement in the education system. NSAs, due to the unique conditions of the COVID-
19 pandemic, were given the opportunity to create a market which they were then responsible 
for controlling and from which they have benefitted. Jober’s (2024) analysis is helpful here, with 
her identification of the emergence of what she refers to as “policyneurs”—individuals, groups 
or organisations that are not simply benefitting from policy, they are so involved in the 
enactment and crafting of it, that they do policy. We argue that the three organisations 
fundamental to the last iteration of the NTP are powerful policyneurs: “[t]hey are policy, they are 
the process, they are policyneurs” (Jober, 2024, p. 36).  

Conclusion 

By 2024, the NTP had ceased to operate, despite the promises of a long-term “tutoring 
revolution” that accompanied its announcement in 2020. Schools’ use of the funding had 
declined, and confidence in the effectiveness of the programme had wavered due to the 
inconclusive findings of EEF evaluations of the NTP, which struggled to collect evidence of 
significant gains (Styles, 2024). A review of the four years of the programme conducted by the 
National Foundation for Education Research found that some schools had never used it because 
they did not have the funding to top up the subsidy, while others had stopped because the 
funding was now too low to pay for tutoring (NFER, 2024). One headteacher described it, in 
another publication, as “a white elephant4 that few in schools wish—or can afford—to engage 
with” (Platten, 2024, p. 18). Nonetheless, NFER noted that “three quarters of senior leaders who 
had participated in the NTP agreed that pupils had engaged with the content of the tutoring, had 
built positive relationships with tutors, had found tutoring beneficial and had enjoyed the 
tutoring sessions” (2024).  

Looking back on the NTP, as we have done here through a brief genealogy and policy 
analysis, we can come to a number of conclusions about its significance and what it represents in 
terms of privatization within education. First, we note the importance of a policy which uses 
public money to pay tutors who are not necessarily qualified teachers to teach within state 
schools, as seen in all iterations of the NTP. This is a departure from the norm and has muddied 
the waters around what constitutes tutoring in a way that benefits providers but arguably not 
students or schools - or indeed qualified teachers. It chimes with multiple antecedents including 
the encroachments of private providers within schools more broadly and the weakening of 
commitments to qualified teaching status. The construction of learning loss as the main 
educational problem during COVID facilitated this form of privatisation, as the private sector 
were brought in to solve another pandemic-induced problem. Second, we have found that the 
evolution of the NTP to allow schools to decide how they spent the NTP funding and to pay 
their own staff represented a further discontinuity, as this challenged the premise of the first 

 
4 This phrase refers to a something which is expensive but unhelpful and no longer needed.  



A Network Policy Analysis of England’s National Tutoring Programme 19 

 

version of the NTP that the private sector could deliver a solution to the problem of learning 
loss. The resulting tensions between the trend towards privatization and schools’ desire to use 
their own staff were resolved through the construction of a complex network of private 
providers operating at the mezzanine level, as guarantors of quality. We argue that this represents 
a ratcheting up of the involvement of the private sector in state governance where globally active 
NSAs were able to extend their networks of operation to mould and govern the state provision 
of tutoring. We argue that we have witnessed the creep of a heterarchical form of governance 
further into a higher level of government. Third, for the three providers in the final iteration of 
the NTP, though it was short-lived, there were significant gains and influence. They were able 
through their mezzanine-level roles to shape a market of state-funded education providers. Their 
participation allowed these global organisations to influence the sector through a vision for 
education that is neoliberal in nature and at the same time serves their business goals. Whilst in 
some ways the NTP may be seen as a failed policy, in other ways it represented an opportunity 
for the private sector to successfully prove and establish itself, and further its vision of 
education, at a new level of state governance. This requires us to develop our understanding of 
what the privatisation of education can look like, to include what might appear to be policy 
failures which have longer-term effects. The “policy-neurs” involved in the NTP programme 
were able to take full advantage of the opportunities presented by the COVID crisis to extend 
their networks and influence and in so doing engender significant shifts in the operation of the 
education sector. A critical result of this was that “new unelected and, in many ways, 
unaccountable voices [have had] a significant say in determining the methods, contents and 
purposes of education” (Avelar & Ball, 2019, p. 272). The implications of this for democracy, 
transparency, and accountability are difficult to establish but remain troubling. 

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Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 33  No. 60  SPECIAL ISSUE 24 

 

 

About the Authors 

Bronwen M. A. Jones 
University College London 
b.m.a.jones@ucl.ac.uk 
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3300-6949 
Dr. Bronwen Jones is a lecturer in sociology of education at UCL Institute of Education. 
Bronwen’s research interests are in the field of critical policy sociology and draw on work of 
Michel Foucault. She explores the impact of neoliberal education reform on our understanding 
and practice of education. She has focussed particularly on the way that policies of well-being 
and character education have been mediated through the neoliberal policy field to reshape our 
perception of what it means to how to educate the “whole child”. She is the author of Educating 
the Neoliberal Whole Child: A Genealogical Approach and joint editor of Neoliberalism and Education. 
 
Patrick L. J. Bailey 
University College London 
patrick.bailey@ucl.ac.uk 
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4045-7705 
Dr. Patrick Bailey is a lecturer in sociology of education at UCL Institute of Education. He is a 
policy sociologist, with particular interest in post-structural approaches to policy analysis. His 
research has explored public service reform and marketisation/privatisation of education; new 
forms of (global) governance in education; and teacher subjectivities and reforms to teacher 
training. 
 
Alice Bradbury 
University College London 
a.bradbury@ucl.ac.uk 
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3269-6199 
Alice Bradbury is professor of sociology of education at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and 
Society and Co-Director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy (0 to 11 Years) at UCL. Her 
research explores education policy in primary and early years education and inequalities. She is 
the author of Understanding Early Years Inequality (Routledge, 2013), The Datafication of Primary and 
Early Years Education (Routledge, with Guy Roberts-Holmes, 2017) and Ability, Inequality and Post-
Pandemic Schools (Policy Press, 2021). Her most recent book is titled Food Banks in Schools and 
Nurseries: The Education Sector’s Responses to the Cost-of-Living Crisis (Policy Press, 2025). 
 

About the Guest Editors 
 

Sue Winton 
York University 
swinton@edu.yorku.ca 
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4074-0068 
Dr. Sue Winton is the York Research Chair in Policy Analysis for Democracy and Professor 
in the Faculty of Education at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her research examines 
policy advocacy, influences, and enactment. She is the Director of the Public Education 
Exchange, a SSHRC-funded project designed to create and share knowledge about education 
privatization (www.pexnetwork.ca). 
 
Nicole Mockler 
The University of Sydney 
nicole.mockler@sydney.edu.au 

mailto:b.m.a.jones@ucl.ac.uk
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3300-6949
mailto:patrick.bailey@ucl.ac.uk
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4045-7705
mailto:a.bradbury@ucl.ac.uk
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3269-6199
file:///C:/Users/swinton/Dropbox/EPAA%20Commercialisation%20SI/swinton@edu.yorku.ca
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4074-0068
http://nicole.mockler@sydney.edu.au


A Network Policy Analysis of England’s National Tutoring Programme 25 

 

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0617-3506 
Dr. Nicole Mockler is a professor of education in the Sydney School of Education and Social 
Work at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her research interests include education policy 
and politics, particularly as they frame teachers’ work, professional l earning, and curriculum 
and pedagogy. 
 
 

Education Privatisation and Commercialisation in the 

Context and Aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic  

education policy analysis archives 
Volume 33 Number 60  September 23, 2025 ISSN 1068-2341 

 

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About the Editorial Team: https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/epaa/about/editorialTeam 

Please send errata notes to Jeanne M. Powers at jeanne.powers@asu.edu  
 

 
 

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