The ACT senator is calling for $3.6 million over four years to fund the expansion of the Regional Education Support Network. Since 2018, through the COVID-19 pandemic, it has arranged for students in regional NSW and Victoria to be tutored by volunteering university students.

The initiative wants to go from 500 students a year to 11,000 a year.

It is understood, the Minister for Education, Jason Clare will be meeting with RESN on Thursday.

Senator Pocock has told The Canberra Times that the initiative is not about replacing teachers, as teachers value the support, but rather helping young people at a critical time.

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"We're going to need a lot of different solutions. This is not the answer to teacher shortages and teacher burnout and the churn that we're seeing of young teachers not staying in teaching," he said.

"I think there's a whole bunch of other work that needs to happen looking at that, but in terms of helping people achieve at school and work through problems that they have, then I think it's a great solution.

"So impressed to see a group of young people say, 'well, we can be part of the solution here'. They're really inspirational."

The volunteer RESN tutors provide in-person seminars, online group tutoring, mentoring and rapid Q&A services.

A recent report by the Grattan Institute, which included analysis of the 2022 NAPLAN results, argued that small group tutoring should be rolled out systematically across Australia to help students catch up on literacy and numeracy.

Many of the RESN tutors are based in the ACT. And while the school students in the program are in Australia's south east corner, there are big plans to expand.

"That's the opportunity, is the funding to essentially scale and leverage all of that free tutoring that they're giving," Senator Pocock said. "The more students that go through it, the more that are going to want to give back."

"I just think it is an incredible thing, post-COVID and the challenges we're facing and some of the very unhelpful stereotypes we hear about Gen Z and young people, you've got this sizeable group of young people saying, well actually I'm going to give back, I'm going to mentor, tutor. We should be backing them, back in, those sorts of ideas."

The Minister for Education Jason Clare said teacher workload has to be tackled to stop them leaving the profession.

"There is a teacher shortage crisis right across the country. We've got to turn this around," he said in a statement.

"Small-group and online tutoring is already used by some jurisdictions and a recent Grattan Institute report contains ideas about the sort of reforms the independent panel for the next National School Reform Agreement could look at to boost student outcomes - particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds."