For much of the past 30 years, Northern Ireland politicians have excelled at the politics of arguing and getting nowhere. Now however, with the creation of a new Assembly - due to meet again on Monday - they are having to learn the art of governance and implementing policies.
To this end, a crash course has been laid on. It is called the New Northern Ireland Assembly Transition Programme and was conceived of by Mo Mowlam several months before the British general election in May 1997 as a means of smoothing the North's path from the Troubles to the start of political accommodation.
In the words of the programme prospectus, the new pupils have been going to classes on "the responsibilities and issues facing the Assembly", each of these lasting a day and covering variously an overview of the Northern Ireland government, public finance, the Assembly's relationships with other UK assemblies, North/ South Co-operation and the Assembly's relationship with the EU.
The core classes have been running since July 29th and finished on Wednesday. For the truly diligent, there will be continuing seminars on such issues as agriculture and environment. There are even going to be school trips - to a three-day conference in Brussels on the EU, and to Boston for participation in a programme to consider "relevant and comparable institutions at federal and state level in the USA".
On average, between 50 and 90 Assembly Members have been attending the classes, according to Alan Barr, the civil servant co-ordinating the programme. "Anti-Agreement AMs from the UK Unionist Party and the DUP have been attending just as enthusiastically as the pro-Agreement parties," he stresses. "The best attended day so far has been the one on public finance - the one about getting your hands on the money."
No members of the media have been allowed into the classes, so there's no knowing if anyone cried on their first day, or who was particularly shy, but according to Alex Maskey, Sinn Fein member for West Belfast, the atmosphere was very relaxed at the seminar on North/South co-operation, which was held on Wednesday in the Europa Hotel in Belfast.
Mr Maskey's last experience of school was at St Malachy's College on Belfast's Antrim Road. He liked that well enough but these classes, he says, have been "particularly informative".
This programme, he continues, is the beginning of giving the governance of Northern Ireland back to the Northern Irish people - a daunting prospect and one which DUP member for East Londonderry, Gregory Campbell (last school Londonderry Technical College), feels will see a honeymoon period followed by the realisation of many difficulties.
"I think some of the people co-ordinating this programme might have hoped that it would go some way to taking the unionist/nationalist divisions out of Northern Irish politics but when it gets down to working out the realities of different views on, say, North/ South bodies, difficult issues will have to be faced.
The exclusion of the media from the proceedings has allowed political posturing to remain outside the classroom. According to Sean Farren (last school, Colaiste Mhuire, Parnell Square, Dublin) SDLP member for North Antrim, questioning has been motivated by a desire to understand the facts put before participants.
In fact, a spin-off from the classes has been the getting-toknow-you opportunities afforded both at little break and lunch break. A chairman of one of the sessions says that participants chatted amicably at breaks, though Mr Campbell is adamant that neither he nor his friends played with anyone from Sinn Fein.
"We simply ignored them," he said.
Business is business, however, and all concede that in the times ahead, grappling with simply "doing the business" for their electors will be both a fraught and shared experience.
They may yet find that their school days have indeed been the best days of their lives.