Government scheme to hire 'mentors' to help schoolchildren may damage their exam results

Adult "mentors" intended to motivate disaffected pupils may damage their exam results, according to research.

Mentors are a key part of the Government's plans to improve the performance of children who struggle at school, particularly in inner cities.

Ministers believe that students at risk of dropping out of school can only benefit from an adult mentor responsible for improving their motivation. They plan to have nearly 4,000 mentors – paid school ancillary staff – in 1,000 schools by 2004, as part of the Excellence in Cities programme.

However, the study by Carol Fitzgibbon, professor of education at Durham University, challenges the orthodox view that mentoring can only improve children's academic results. Her research concluded that pupils who had a mentor scored an average of 0.6 GCSE grades lower on each exam than pupils who had not received the extra support.

Professor Fitzgibbon said: "It is important to remember that what a school may regard as mentoring, a disaffected young person may regard as harassment. If you put yourself in the shoes of someone who is not enjoying school, imagine you are told to spend your lunch hour being mentored or have your parents called in – it's only going to convince you that you want to leave school."

Her study identified 120 "under-aspiring" 15-year-olds in 15 schools. Using a series of tests to predict school performance, the students were matched into pairs of almost identical academic ability.

Professor Fitzgibbon tossed a coin to decide which one of each pair would be mentored. She said: "Mentoring is seen as good because the feedback from everyone involved is always so positive. But you have to look at the data. After all, medics used to feed people phosphorus, and they all said it was making them feel great, but actually it was killing them." She now plans to carry out a repeat study involving 3,000 in 30 schools to examine the effect in more detail.

Her findings were echoed by a study of a mentoring scheme run by the charity Chance UK for disadvantaged children in north London. It found that although the programme was well-run and was popular, there were no measurable improvements in the children's behaviour after a year.

But a spokeswoman for the Department for Education and Skills said working with mentors benefited disaffected pupils. She said mentors could also benefit the rest of the school in ways which were often hard to measure, such as by reducing disruptive behaviour so other pupils could learn. She said: "This research involves an extremely small sample. Our evidence suggests that learning mentors are helping pupils overcome barriers to learning."