MONTEGO BAY, St James — Today’s start to the new school year got off fairly smoothly in parishes across western Jamaica.

“There was generally a smooth start; there were no reports of major challenges,” said Devon Ruddock, the Ministry of Education's regional director for Region Four.

Ruddock said, however, that two schools in the region had reported a shortage of furniture, but said they should receive adequate supplies by Wednesday.

At the Granville Primary School in Trelawny, Principal Ivanhoe Gordon reported that the co-educational institution had a smooth start. The school — one of the better known in the parish — usually has an overcrowding problem.

But today, Gordon said so far the school has not been faced with that problem and they had adequate furniture.

He noted, however, that three of his teachers are currently on sick leave and are not expected back on the job until later this month.

“Right now I have to be configuring some of the classes because three teachers are on sick leave; but apart from that everything else is okay,” he told the Observer.

The institution has a student population of roughly 42O and a teaching staff of 20.

Lesbia Phillips, the principal of Esher Primary School in Hanover, said too, that her school opened without any problems.

“We have settled in nicely; everything is going good. We are basically okay,” Phillips said.

Checks carried out by the Observer at other schools in the region also revealed that there were no major problems.