THE Ministry of Education yesterday announced that the official start of the 2007/8 school year will be September 10, and not September 3 as was previously scheduled.

The one-week delay, according to the ministry’s public relations head, Charlene Ashley, is a result of the new election date proposed by the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ), as well as the damage caused to some schools by Hurricane Dean.

On Monday, the ECJ recommended to Governor-General Professor Kenneth Hall that parliamentary elections be pushed back from August 27 to September 3, the original start date of the new academic year. The commission’s recommendation was itself directly related to the effects of Hurricane Dean which battered the island’s south coast Sunday night, leaving most of the country without electricity, telephone service and water.

However, the revised voting date has negatively impacted the beginning of the school year because many schools are used as polling stations and classes in those learning institutions have to be suspended to facilitate the electoral process.

As far as the number of schools damaged by the hurricane and the extent of the damage, the ministry says it currently does not have that information. Ashley said the information was still being collected and that an update would be released today.