Outsourcing catch-up tutoring to teenagers in Sri Lanka is part of a bigger project to weaken, and cheapen, public services
The erosion of job security and the prospects of millions of UK workers due to casualisation and outsourcing is widely recognised to have transformed the experience of work. Between 2000 and 2016, the number of zero-hours contracts increased fourfold. Such trends are meeting with increased resistance. Last week, Uber drivers won the right to a minimum hourly wage and holiday pay.
Through the replacement of permanent staff with service contracts, public sector employers such as the NHS have been part of the shift towards more precarious employment. The exposure of a company that was paying Sri Lankan teenagers £1.57 an hour to tutor primary school pupils shows that schools in England are now being pushed down a similar path. Parents and teachers want to make the most of the £1.7bn catch-up fund provided by the government. But as difficulties with the scheme emerge, it seems far from clear that it will boost schools and teachers. On the contrary, the use of public funds to build a system that supplements lessons by qualified teachers with far cheaper ones delivered via the internet, by unqualified people thousands of miles away, could undermine them.
