The pandemic has caused learning disruptions for students across Ontario. These disruptions resulted in learning gaps for students who now need tutoring to catch up academically. In response, the Government of Ontario announced the Learning Recovery Action Plan. The plan includes a Tutoring Supports Program that gives $175 million to school boards to provide tutoring over the next two years.

According to the province, the plan will give students access to tutoring before, during or after school, on weekends, and during the summer months. This tutoring will be conducted in small groups (an average of five students) or may be provided on an individualized basis.

• $90 per student: Data from 2019/20 show there were approximately 1.9 million kindergarten to grade 12 students enrolled in Ontario’s government-run school system. When split across this population, the $175 million allocated for tutoring averages out to a low $90 per student. One estimate from the United States puts the annual cost of tutoring at over $1,400 USD per student. Ontario’s extremely low per-student allocation raises the question of whether the Tutoring Supports Program would have any meaningful impact on students.
• Staffing limitations: Minister Lecce noted that tutoring programs may be delivered by existing teaching staff or by those outside the system (ex. post-secondary students with certain qualifications). School boards may also partner with local community organizations to deliver the programs. While the plan may allow this level of flexibility, the fact remains that funds are being transferred exclusively to school boards to design the programs. Given ongoing reports of staffing shortages and teacher burnout, it is unclear if schools will have the capacity to provide small group tutoring or if the funds will simply be subsumed into staffing budgets. Further, it is unclear what impact these additional responsibilities will have on teachers’ collective agreements. Potential issues around teachers’ compensation, additional workload, and available preparation time call into question the feasibility of this tutoring program.
• School boards’ inflexibility: The sheer size of Ontario’s government-run school system often renders it incapable of responding to local needs. Cardus’s research on how Christian independent schools pivoted in the early days of the pandemic provides a helpful contrast. These smaller, more locally responsive schools did not lose as many days of instruction and enabled teachers to remain closely connected to students. Channelling tutoring funds through a structure that has proven itself to be inflexible throughout the pandemic leaves little confidence in the possible success of this program.

Ontario’s public-school boards must implement their tutoring programs by April 2022 at the latest. It remains to be seen if structural issues within Ontario’s public education system will prevent a well-intentioned (albeit underfunded) policy from achieving its stated aims.

Cardus maintains that parents are best-positioned to make decisions about their children’s education. In May 2020, the federal government provided a one-time top up of the Canada Child Benefit. This direct transfer to parents at a rate of $300 per child could be used for discretionary expenses from online tutoring to groceries. In April 2020, the Government of Ontario also provided a one-time payment to parents of $200 per child aged zero to 12. These funds were provided to help with the effects of school and child care centre closures. The government should build upon these existing models and provide tutoring funds directly to parents to meet the needs of Ontario’s school-aged children.