A professor of psychology at the Institute of Education (IOE) has claimed that while private tuition can exacerbate social divides, it can also bridge them.

Research published by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development showed that 17 per cent of 15-year-olds in England received one-to-one lessons in 2006, compared to an average of 18 per cent across the bloc.

By contrast, a recent study conducted in two grammar schools revealed that 72 per cent of the pupils there had received private tuition ahead of their entry exams.

Giving her professorial lecture at the IOE last week, Judy Ireson warned that private tutoring wealthier students was a major concern as it enabled them to gain a competitive advantage over their poorer counterparts.

Yet she countered that state-funded one-to-one tuition could help to reduce inequalities, with some publically funded school-based programmes having already enabled lower attaining children to surpass anticipated standards.

Professor Ireson remarked: “An important point about this provision is that, together with after-school clubs, revision classes and booster sessions, it provides opportunities that are accessible to all.”

Last month, the IOE released figures indicating that schools which implemented Every Child a Reader, which involves one-to-one literacy tuition, showed a more rapid improvement in reading and writing attainment levels at key stage one between 2007 and 2010.

Yet by contrast, a toolkit recently put together by academics at the University of Durham rated one-to-one tuition as delivering only moderate improvements in pupil performance, against high costs of implementation.

Instead, the report – published by social mobility campaign group the Sutton Trust – cited effective teacher feedback as the best way to bolster pupil performance, along with getting students to evaluate their own learning strategies and peer-assisted learning.