As the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion re­pair pro­gramme got un­der­way yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath as­sured that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to have all schools open on time for the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

Recog­nis­ing the re­cur­ring is­sue of de­layed school re­open­ings due to un­fin­ished re­pairs, Dowlath con­firmed that work had start­ed at 278 schools across the coun­try. He made the an­nounce­ment af­ter launch­ing the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice’s Youth Em­pow­er­ment Camp at San Fer­nan­do Cen­tral Sec­ondary School.

Dowlath said the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny (NMTS) has al­ready scoped works for over 200 schools, with con­trac­tors ex­pect­ed on site this week. The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion will soon re­lease in­for­ma­tion about the schools in­clud­ed in the first phase.