ST JAMES, Jamaica— Schools have until 2:00pm Friday to indicate whether they will resume participation in the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) Rural Area schoolgirls’ netball competition.

Netball, like football and basketball, was suspended because of the passage of Hurricane Melissa on October 28, and an attempt has been made to restart the competition, but up to Thursday afternoon, 38 of the 57 schools taking part had not indicated their willingness to resume.

In a memo sent to member schools on Thursday, ISSA, the organisers of sporting events in high schools, listed a number of schools from at least seven parishes that had not responded to say whether they would be willing to continue.

ISSA had earlier indicated that the schoolboys’ football competitions, the daCosta Cup and Manning Cup, would resume at the end of the month, following a series of meetings with stakeholders.

The football competitions, which started on the first weekend of September, had reached the round of 16. According to ISSA, the schools were willing to continue.

In the case of the netball competitions that are played in two age groups, under 16 and under 19, most of the schools that were yet to respond are from western Jamaica, which was badly damaged by the hurricane.

Thirteen of the schools that had not indicated their willingness to continue are from the parishes of St James, Hanover and Trelawny; six are from St Elizabeth, while there are a number from Manchester, St Ann, St Mary, St Catherine and Portland.

—Paul Reid