Last Friday, Scholar Hub founder Tanvir Mukhtar, in discussion with the BBC and John Nichols, President of The Tutors’ Association, explored the difficulties and problems with the lack of requirement for tutors to have DBS checks and the lack of a legal definition for what a tutor is. This shortfall poses an obvious risk to the safety of our children, as Tanvir even points out that if football coaches require DBS check to work with children, then shouldn’t tutors too?
In 2014, Tanvir founded Scholar Hub, a digital learning platform, which required all tutors of under 18s to undergo a background check, and even included a built-in panic button for children to use if required during online sessions. Today Scholar Hub has evolved into an excellent tool through which tutors can deliver online lessons, with features that go far beyond video calling and screen-sharing, such as a whiteboard function and the Maths Equation Editor tool.
Read the transcript of Tanvir’s interview here:
BBC: Well let’s talk about this some more. Campaigner Tanvir Mukhtar and President of The Tutors’ Association, John Nichols, here in the studio with us. Good morning to both. Tanvir can I just start with you first of all, cause I think that report very much brought things clearly into people’s minds, but you as a parent, you have had a moment when you’ve come face to face with one of these [inaudible]. Could you just take us through that?
Tanvir Mukhtar: Yeah, it actually really gave my heart palpitations listening to that interview with that lady because it very much it could have happened to me. About 10 years ago, both my children were being tutored, one day he didn’t turn up, a few weeks later I got a call from a police officer asking whether my children had been tutored by that particular tutor and that there are obviously issues around that, that other children had been abused. I then went through the process of having to sit my children down and ask them whether anything had happened, and thankfully, and I thank god everyday, that nothing had happened and they were absolutely fine. And I think one of the major reasons why was, because they were tutored together, nothing actually happened. But this put me on a journey of actually trying to understand why it happened and why I had allowed this man into my home and, you know, obviously I felt guilt as a parent and then I started doing some research and realised that there is no legal requirement for tutors to have any form of criminal background check. I was horrified, parents that I spoke to were also horrified, 99% of the parents that I speak to have absolutely no idea that tutors, private tutors, do not [need to have a criminal background check], that there is no legal requirement around this. And so I decided to set up a tutoring platform to focus specifically on this, and the tutors on there who teach children to all be mandatorily 100% DBS criminally background checked. So that’s the journey I went on, but so many parents have tutors, so many parents have private tutors, for whether it’s the 11+ or the A Levels or the GCSEs, and I think they just need to be informed to do the required checks, so that their children are safe.
BBC: John, President of The Tutors’ Association, so you do have tutors on your books who are DBS checked?
John Nichols: We are a professional body, we represent tutors and tuition companies across the United Kingdom, and out further afield as well, and it is a mandatory requirement of all of our members to have a DBS check in the last year.
BBC: And do people go to you to hire a tutor or?
John Nichols: No, so they go to our members. So in the same way you’d have RICS for the surveyors and the solicitors have their own professional body, The Tutors’ Association is a professional body. It is relatively young as a professional body, it only was founded in 2013, but we have made it a really key, important part of our mission to make sure that there are robust standards in place for our members, a professional code of practice, and it is absolutely a mandatory requirement that everyone has a DBS check, and it’s either on the update service or less than a year old.
BBC: What is happening is that parents are trying to find tutors for their kids. We know this is happening, the pressure of exams and, you know, just trying to get their children into the schools they want, they think are best for them. So they are looking around for tutors and the prices for tutoring are going up. So they’re looking, we get reports that they’re looking on FaceBook, for example. Someone was talking about it in our office this morning that there were tutors handing out leaflets in the street, so anyone can say they’re a tutor?
John Nichols: And that is something which is the case right now. There is absolutely no legal status of ‘tutor’ in the UK, right. They don’t have to be employed by anyone in particular, like teachers would be employed by a school. Most of them are self-employed which is absolutely fine -
BBC: I can be a tutor.
John Nichols: You could say you were a tutor, walk out, and regardless of your knowledge and experience, there is nothing illegal about you saying “I can tutor your child in chemistry”. It doesn’t matter if you know anything about chemistry whatsoever, or English, or Maths, or anything else. But what we want to stress is actually that the vast majority of professional tutors really take it seriously and they have the right qualifications, and they’re perfectly safe. But what we want to do is we want to make sure that there is at least a mandatory minimum standard, which has to be an enhanced DBS check, that everyone must meet. And obviously there are lots of tutors out there that do meet a much higher standard and deliver a fantastic service. We’re very proud to have lots of them as members but membership of TTA is completely voluntary.
BBC: I suppose, Tanvir, what a lot of John was saying there makes complete sense - you want to do as many checks as you can. But in the same breath, if all the parents that you know have used a tutor who has done brilliant work, got great results, very lovely, you know, the word of mouth is good, some people would say that’s almost better than a stamp of approval that could have happened a year ago. It’s not necessarily straightforward is it?
Tanvir Mukhtar: It is completely not straightforward. I went on a recommendation, most parents go on recommendations. So I actually say to parents, friends of mine, or clients, don’t go by recommendations, if you do, make sure you still ask for certificates, make sure you still speak to parents of their tutees, still do your research. And I would concur with John that, you know, the far majority of tutors in this country are very good, they do have the DBS, they are part of professional tutor agencies, but there are thousands of tutors on FaceBook as you’ve already mentioned, just on my own Scholar Hub FaceBook group I have over 30,000. And they’re global, we’re not just talking about tutors in the UK, we’re talking about tutors from all over the world who are much cheaper than the tutors in the UK, so it is slightly complicated, but looking specifically at the UK tutors, a legal requirement is absolutely a no-brainer. It has to be done. Anyone, even football coaches, need some form of criminal background check - private tutors are working with children on a daily basis. Why are there not checks?
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