Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy. I appreciate his opening remarks. On CLASS, this is the third aspect of the support programme for children, as we have said previously. The important aspect of the CLASS initiative is that it is for the benefit of all students. There will be targeted teaching hours made available to schools. For example, a post-primary school of 800 pupils will be entitled to an additional 1,100 hours, which is 51 weeks. That amounts to a full year and a half of additional resources from a teaching point of view. A primary school of 200 pupils will be eligible for 15 weeks.

The important consideration is that what is being offered is twofold. In the first instance, the scheme will be for any student in any of the platforms that have lost out in terms of academic work or otherwise. Schools have the autonomy to decide upon that. The second aspect is that the scheme gives young people an opportunity to socialise, engage and team-build, and basically to have fun also. We are examining other creative measures, including sport, drama, poetry and artistic endeavours. They could very much be features of the programme in our schools also. Each school has the autonomy to decide how best to break up the hours.

Whether it would be for team-teaching purposes, group teaching or individual teaching from an academic learning point of view or for the recreation and creative aspect, it is a two-pronged attack. It is acknowledging that students, when they are not in school and where they were not in school as a consequence of Covid, are now deserving of support and CLASS, from the middle of October, will be in a position to meet that. That is in conjunction with the other two aspects, which were they supplementary programme and the enhance summer provision which, this year, for the first time ever also, was open to all schools to apply. I hope that gives the Deputy a flavour of what we hope to achieve with it.