Yesterday we officially launched our private tuition jobs board: Tutors Wanted.

Any student, parent, school or other organisation can post a request for tuition, and conversely, any tutor or teacher can reply to requests.

The service is free for both the enquirer and respondent (tutors not registered with us can answer requests by creating a free Basic Account), and everyone can keep up-to-date with the latest job opportunities by following The Tutor Pages on Twitter.

Even we’ve been surprised by the popularity of Tutors Wanted in its first week: it’s supposed to be the holiday season!

Just check out the new tutor jobs feature for yourself here:

http://www.thetutorpages.com/tutor-jobs

Gordon Brown and Ed Balls are looking pretty cheery about the government’s one-to-one tuition programme – but will it work?

The programme is aimed at helping struggling children in England’s state schools. In July last year I reported on how the government is trying to recruit 100,000 one-to-one tutors for the purpose, and at the time, PriceWaterhouseCoopers brought to light the problems involved in recruiting such a large number of tutors.

Well, yesterday PriceWaterhouseCoopers published their final evaluation of the tuition pilot scheme, and the problems with tutor recruitment haven’t gone away. Only 37,000 tutors out of the proposed 100,000 have decided to sign up. They state,

The number of pupils receiving one-to-one tuition is still below the allocation of 10% of pupils per pilot local authority. Head teachers/school pilot leaders suggested this was partly a consequence of the ongoing challenges around recruitment.

Back in July, I discussed the recruitment issues with a Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) official who suggested that graduates with good degrees in maths or English (or strongly related subjects such as Media Studies) may be eligible to become tutors for the scheme in the future.

This sounds like a sensible idea: it would provide rewarding employment to graduates struggling to find work, and at the same time provide real support to pupils who are struggling at school. As my previous posts have emphasized, the most comprehensive research into tutoring demonstrates that the ‘active ingredient’ of tutoring is not the expert teaching skill of the tutor – it is rather the creation of a space for active pupil contributions which makes all the difference. Therefore, tutoring is something that intelligent graduates can certainly handle without requiring them to undertake conventional teacher training.

However, whether the government would ever consider this feasible or acceptable to the teaching profession or general public is another matter.

As well as featuring in the Times Ed Masterclass Series last month, it has now been made available by Careers Services such as those at Cambridge University and London University. The no.1 university careers portal Prospects.ac.uk has linked to the Guide as one of its recommended resources.

The Royal College of Music Graduate Services division has also been spreading the word, thus demonstrating that it is also a great resource for those interested in becoming musical instrument teachers.

The Guide contains relevant information and advice for new and established tutors alike. And what’s more, it’s free to download.

As an independent review by teachers at Schoolzone remarked:

Tutoring: The Complete Guide tells you all you need to know about how to set up and manage the business of tutoring, including managing tax, contracting clients, effective teaching and so on. If you are a tutor, or are thinking of becoming one, you should certainly read this!