Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath has as­sured that all school re­pairs will be com­plet­ed and book grants dis­trib­uted in time for the start of the new school term on Sep­tem­ber 8.

The min­is­ter made the an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day dur­ing the launch of his San Fer­nan­do West Con­stituen­cy Clean-up cam­paign.

Dowlath said the re­pairs were on track and will be com­plet­ed by Sep­tem­ber 5. Par­ents who ap­plied for school sup­plies and the $1,000 book grant would al­so re­ceive them by that date.

He not­ed that most ap­pli­cants did not have bank ac­counts, re­quir­ing cheques to be pre­pared.

“Just about 5,000 of the 20,000 who had bank ac­counts got a di­rect de­posit. But close to 14,000 par­ents had to wait for cheques, col­lect them at the dis­trict of­fice, and then vis­it the rev­enue of­fice to cash them,” he ex­plained.

The min­is­ter added that he would al­so dis­trib­ute school­books and sta­tionery to 100 stu­dents with­in his con­stituen­cy.

T&T’s 63rd In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary, Dowlath said, was an op­por­tune mo­ment to launch the clean-up cam­paign.

Speak­ing in front of his Min­istry’s San Fer­nan­do of­fice on Sut­ton Street, he em­pha­sised set­ting a pos­i­tive ex­am­ple, es­pe­cial­ly for stu­dents.

“This is one of the ways we can give back—not just sit and talk, but take ac­tion and make a dif­fer­ence,” he said.

The clean-up cam­paign will be held every Sat­ur­day, the min­is­ter’s con­stituen­cy day, and he ex­pressed con­fi­dence that hun­dreds would par­tic­i­pate in the com­ing weeks.

The cam­paign in­clud­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion from the min­is­ter’s of­fice staff, con­stituents, coun­cil­lors, school su­per­vi­sors, and the clean­ing of Irv­ing Park.