A lot of face-to-face learning time has been lost for pupils and students over the past 18 months.
And so this summer, almost 1,000 schools across the country intend to run special summer programmes to help children make up for losses to learning and socialisation as a result of the school closures.
According to
RTE, preliminary figures from the Department of Education indicate that 968 schools have expressed an interest in running 1,346 schemes across a range of Department of Education-funded summer programmes. This, the department confirmed, is an increase of 161 percent on uptake in these programmes compared to last year.
The comprehensive programmes will include schemes aimed at children with disabilities as well as children at greatest risk from educational disadvantage, and it is expected that around 34,000 students will benefit.
This is the first year that all schools have been eligible to participate, as previously, summer programmes were only available to special schools and pupils in special classes in primary schools and in DEIS schools.
As well as the in-school schemes, there will be separate offerings for home-based provision for children with complex needs.
11,000 children attending DEIS primary schools are expected to participate in literacy and numeracy camps, while almost 9,000 children in other schools will be able to attend similar programmes.
For older children, 120 second-level schools intend to run programmes, to cater for almost 8,000 teenagers
The Department of Education has also confirmed there will be 408 summer camps across the country for children with complex needs, expected to cater for as many as 6,482 young people.
A massive investment, the total funding available to this year's summer programme is up to €40 million.
