The QBE Foundation has agreed an innovative partnership with education charity Action Tutoring that will see QBE invest over £1.5 million to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds in England.
The ambition is to help plug the academic attainment gap for English and maths. With QBE’s funding, Action Tutoring will aim to double within five years the number of pupils and reach more remote locations.
The scale of the challenge
By the end of GCSEs, children from low-income backgrounds are on average 18 months behind their peers. This attainment gap was already one of the largest in the developed world before Covid-19, but lockdowns exacerbated inequalities so much that it would take a decade just to bring it back to pre-pandemic levels.
How QBE & Action Tutoring are responding
The QBE Foundation and Action Tutoring are committing to reduce the academic attainment gap by providing free tuition to disadvantaged pupils, through partnerships with non-selective state schools, enabling these children to make meaningful academic progress and opening doors to future employment and other opportunities.
“QBE is stepping in with the financial support to allow Action Tutoring to achieve specific outcomes that we both believe will dramatically improve the prospects for many underprivileged children. The money we provide is geared to achieving measurable progress in tackling the education attainment gap.”
Grant Clemence, Chairman, QBE Foundation
“Our partnership aims to accelerate the post Covid-19 recovery and fight inequality. The funding will help us tutor twice as many pupils as we do today within five years, and also expand our reach from urban to rural areas.”
Susannah Hardyman, CEO, Action Tutoring
You can read more about the partnership in our press release here.
