No classes on Friday because of TS Matthew

arlette gomez

Late this evening, the Ministry of Education confirmed that classes for Friday have been cancelled due to the threat from the storm.  The Ministry’s Education Information Officer, Arlette Gomez, says the decision was taken to avoid any type of perils to life and limb.

Arlette Gomez, Education Information Officer, M.O.E. (via phone)

“We will be cancelling classes for tomorrow for the entire country. All districts they will be no classes.”

Marion Ali

“That includes preschools, primary school?”

Arlette Gomez

“Every level of the education system and for every school in the country. We know that we’re prone to flooding and we bus a lot of these children to school; especially those in the rural areas and we don’t want the roads to be flooded and those students are stranded away from home. And so we have decided to earn the side of caution and call the classes off for tomorrow. As you may recall a couple weeks ago we had flash flooding in Punta Gorda and there was no storm so we don’t want anything like that to happen again. We have a storm coming and the probability of flooding is very high. So we have been told by NEMO and we want to ensure that these children aren’t left stranded so we are calling off the classes.”

Gomez says that schools in the respective districts will make the necessary preparations and if the storm passes over the weekend as is projected, the closure of classes may be extended next week.  That, however, will be determined in the days to come.