Things are very different in Europe and in the US. And even in different countries in Europe, I suspect. Summer vacations exist but opportunities for catching u

Things are very different in Europe and in the US. And even in different countries in Europe, I suspect. Summer vacations exist but opportunities for catching up during them might be limited in public schools. Many don't have remediation learning tracks for students who have fallen behind. Where I was growing up in the 90s, some teachers would stay after work in their classrooms mostly out of the goodness of their hearts and help pupils who fell behind. Not all teachers would do this and sometimes your school wouldn't have a teacher helping kids in a certain discipline, so you would go to your friends' schools if they had that. Sometimes money was involved, which created conflicts of interest. Commercial tutoring schools popped up in the region later that formalized and democratized the process a little bit. The internet was there in the late 90s already, but obviously things like Khan Academy arrived much later. I appreciate that kids these days have more resources and it's not an "every kid for themselves" as it was in my childhood. But I still think it would be best if the tempo at schools was reduced so there's time to catch up. Spaced out learning is more effective in terms of retention anyways. It just takes more time.