Education Minister Milton Scott was joined by Works and Engineering Minister Alex Scott on Friday when they took a final tour of schools that have been under construction this summer.

All of them will be ready for the scheduled start of the new term today, except for Spice Valley Middle School, which will not be ready until a week later.

Mr. Scott said BermudaTech Construction had promised to hand over the classrooms to the school today to enable teachers to go in and prepare their rooms for lessons starting on September 17.

However, he said all of the work will not be finished in time for the return of the students, meaning some areas of the school will have to be cordoned off while workmen complete the tasks.

A plan to move the 280 pupils to Warwick Camp for a fortnight from today was called off when parents and teachers raised concern about the suitability of the army base.

Instead, they have decided to delay the start of term for another week, in the hope that all missed school work can be caught up over the coming year.

Mr. (Alex) Scott said: "It looks as if parents, teachers and the Ministry of Education have come together to make the best out of what has proved to be a challenging situation.

"The challenge is that the site has gotten a little behind. Contributing factors are that the school did not turn all of the classrooms over to the contractor early in the summer, when they should. That caused a little delay.

"We have also found asbestos in the school and we had the options of encasing it or taking it out, so we decided to take it out."

Mr. Scott said his department was not responsible for supervising the site, but decided to take a closer look at it once he heard there were delays.

He said BermudaTech had promised to hand over the classrooms on Monday, so furniture and materials could be taken back in.

However, he said some of his technical officers believed the work still may not be done in time for that deadline.

But he said workers were working around the clock to ensure that as much work as possible was done.

"We have been told that the classrooms that the teachers need and principal needs, and Education expects, will be ready on the 10th.

"We have our fingers crossed that they will be ready by the 17th."

Mr. Scott said he believed that a manpower shortage had been a problem for the site, especially on the electrical side. However, he said he believed everyone was in place now.

President of BermudaTech Jonathan Baxter promised the teachers would get their classrooms today. He said: "The classrooms will be ready for the pupils to move in. The only things we will be working on is the last minute things."