The government has allocated more than €250,000 for summer catch-up classes to help pupils whose education was affected by COVID-19.

The investment was announced by Education Minister Justyne Caruana and the parliamentary secretary for EU funds, Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi, who said that the programme will be co-financed by European funds.

Lessons will be provided to primary and secondary students who will be able to revise the work done in the scholastic year.  

Caruana said an initial internal study about school attendance during the 2020/2021 scholastic year showed that there was a high level of absenteeism from a substantial number of students.

This had led to an intensive and coordinated effort leading to the Ministry for Education offering the learning recovery programme during the summer.

The programme will first address those who had a high rate of absenteeism during the pandemic: those students who had less than 10 percent school attendance during this scholastic year (October 2020-May 2021) but who attended regularly before the pandemic broke out.

Such students were identified for each year in the educational system—a total of 2,360 students from Year 1 to Year 11 (1,190 primary students; 402 Year 7 and Year 8 middle school students; and 768 Year 9 and Year 10 secondary school students).

The programme includes a range of basic recovery lessons, and support through various services, which will be done in person and through virtual learning.

The eight-week programme will run from July 12 to September 3, with a timetable of four days a week, from 8.30 am to noon. Students will be divided into groups according to their school year.

There will be four learning centres for the primary levels: in Paola, Birkirkara, Qawra, and Victoria Gozo—and the Virtual National School and four learning centres for the middle and secondary: in Sta. Lucija, Mrieħel, Mosta, and the Secondary School in Gozo, the Virtual National School, and a centre for sessions of the Prince Trust International Achieve Programme.

Application details will be issued in the coming days.