Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 31 May 2022
385. Deputy Noel Grealish asked the Minister for Education if he will outline a list of all the additional education schemes which were provided in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic; the number of these schemes that are still in operation in 2022; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [27435/22]
View answerAdditional programmes were provided to support students during the period of Covid-19 to ensure
that all students including those with special educational needs were supported.
Summer Provision 2020 was a discrete response to Covid-19 and represented a significant expansion on the July Provision programme of previous years, with the eligibility criteria widened to include approximately 9,000 additional children with complex needs.
The programme aims were to ensure, in so far as possible, that these children could reintegrate/transition into their planned education setting for the next school year with their peers. It ran throughout the school summer holidays in 2020.
The Department put in place the Supplementary Programme in February 2021 to support the education and/or care needs of pupils with complex needs during the period of extended school closures and phased reopening.
The programme provided additional tuition hours to be provided in a child’s home by a recognised teacher/SNA, under guidance from the public health experts as to how safely to deliver a programme in the home. Over 14,000 applications were received under this programme. These hours were intended to complement the remote learning that was being delivered at the time by schools.
The programme ran until 30 April 2021. Twenty additional hours of tuition/care support were provided to eligible pupils. An additional ten hours were made available to pupils who did not return to in-school learning on 01 March. Payments of over €10m were paid in August to staff who worked on this scheme in 2021.
In May 2021 the Government announced a package of supports to enable primary and post primary to offer a summer programme for students with complex special educational needs and those at greatest risk of educational disadvantage.
The total funding made available to provide summer programmes in 2021 was €40 million, a one hundred per cent increase on the allocation for summer programmes in 2020. The expanded programme could be run throughout the summer months of 2021.
The Summer Programme was recently announced again for 2022 manitaining the same level of investment as 2022. This is providing for the continuation of a summer education programme for pupils with complex special educational needs (SEN) and those at greatest risk of educational disadvantage as a measure relating to the impact of Covid-19 on schools and families during the 2021/22 school year.
A COVID Learning and Support Scheme (CLASS) was put in place to help schools mitigate the adverse impacts of Covid-19 on pupil/student learning loss and wellbeing arising from the periods of school closures in 2020 and 2021.
A block of additional teaching hours has been provided to each recognised school, from which they can provide additional teaching support for the pupils/students who have experienced difficulties in settling back into school and engaging with learning.
The allocations which have made available to schools under CLASS are additional allocations of teaching hours, for each school, which are provided on a graduated and proportionate basis, based on school size, using the 2020/21 school enrolment data and were available to draw down from 11 October 2021.
