Tough lessons ahead for state of home tutoring

One tutor who has challenged the precarious arrangement for home tutors is Cork-based Brian Piggot. He took a case to the Workplace Relations Commission in 2023. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

The work that goes on behind closed doors is unseen and often goes undervalued. One area where some people believe this to be the case is in home tutoring for children. 

Usually, the children who avail of home tutors have special or additional needs. 

By design, the home tutor scheme is supposed to be temporary, a stopgap until the child can get placed in the most appropriate educational setting. 

The reality is that for some children that place is never found and they can spend years being taught in the home rather than among their peers.

This becomes apparent every September when figures emerge to show the number of children with additional needs for whom a school place has not been secured. 

More often than not, the parents of children in this situation have to acquire home tuition, through a Department of Education programme. 

In theory, this is supposed to last a matter of weeks or months. Yet some children spend years being taught in this environment, effectively outside the system.

So it goes with children being ill-served by the state. 

But another element to this form of education is the status of the tutors. There are over 1,400 home tutors working in education. 

They are not employed like their colleagues who teach in schools. Instead, they operate the twilight zone that is known in other sectors as bogus self employment. 

To all intents and purposes, they are employees except they are treated by the employer — in this case the state — as self employed.

One tutor who has challenged this arrangement is Cork-based Brian Piggot. He took a case to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) in 2023. 

He wants to be categorized as an employee. As things stand, home tutors are paid through the child’s family but funded by the Department of Education. 

And for some reason, tax is deducted at source, even though the tutor is not entitled to sick leave, or holidays, or to benefit from a pensions scheme, all the kind of employment conditions enjoyed by their colleagues who work in schools.

Mr Piggot told the WRC hearing that he has been a tutor for ten years, working between 35 and 40 hours a week during the academic year, earning €49.50 per hour. 

He “taught students who either had health difficulties preventing them from attending school or were waiting for a place in a school through the Home Tuition Scheme”. 

The parents directed him what to teach. The books were supplied to the parents through the book rental school scheme, or, in some instances, the parents themselves would supply the books. 

He was supposed to be paid monthly, but that didn’t always happen. Sometimes, his money was delayed because the parents delayed submitting claim forms to the department which were required to ensure he was paid.

He is, for tax purposes, treated as a PAYE worker. Yet, “he is not paid sick leave or annual leave and is restricted to working during the academic year”, the WRC hearing was told.

The Department of Education has a different take on whether tutors are employees. 

At the hearing, an assistant principal who administers the scheme gave evidence. Ken Noonan said that the scheme operated by the parents applying and then being assigned hours. 

As such, he maintained, “the parent is the applicant and there is no relationship between the tutor and the respondent (department)." 

This is despite the department paying the teacher and deducting tax at source. He said it was a temporary scheme, designed to mirror school. 

He did accept that the tutor must log their hours and those hours are then sent to the department.

So, is it the case that the parents are the employer? 

No, Mr Noonan said, the department “facilitated the parents by making payments to the tutor".

Mr Piggot submitted that a Supreme Court ruling in 2023, affirming that delivery drivers for Domino’s Pizzas should be treated as employees, set a precedent. 

However, the adjudicator ruled that under the law, as it exists, there is not a contract between the tutor and the department. 

The contract is, legally, between the tutor and the child’s parents.

Appeal 

On Thursday, the Labour court sitting in Cork will hear an appeal on this case.

One way or the other, whatever the outcome, this issue will not go away. 

The specifics of the law will decide the case in question but over the longer term the issue of whether home tutoring is for the short term will have to be addressed. 

That, in turn, will require an examination once more of the provision of school places for children with additional needs. 

As of now, there is absolutely no indication that the state will provide sufficient places either within mainstream or in special schools that are required.

Fine Gael TD Colm Burke has raised the issue repeatedly in the Dáil, most recently in 2023 following the Supreme Court ruling in the Domino case. 

He pointed out that home tutors are not entitled to take on additional work during school holiday periods at Christmas or Easter.

The Department sets out clear restrictions and deducts tax, yet tutors do not have the benefits of being employees. They are at a huge disadvantage in every respect, he said. 

He was speaking in response to a parliamentary question where he was told that the department did not intend to take tutors on as employees.

The scenario would appear to be that the department will discharge its responsibilities according to the law as it stands — and will dispute as in the case of Mr Piggot — any attempt to have tutors employed, yet it will not change the law or an employment contract to reflect the reality that home tuition is not short term and tutors deserve more than to be treated like this behind closed doors.