Education Minister Evarist Bartolo yesterday told Parliament that Skolasajf had opened four days late because he had reliably learned only on the Sunday afternoon that not enough adults were available to care for the number of children registered.

He said the 11,000 children registered this year were equivalent to the population of a primary school – no comparison to the numbers up to last year.

He was still very annoyed that people had kept telling him until the end there were “no problems”, when actually preparations had been poor. He said he preferred to work with people who told him the truth.

Many shortcomings had been solved since Sunday, including having learning support assistants on a one-to-one basis for children with special needs. Mr Bartolo said lessons should be learned from this year’s experience.

Answering a question, he said the ratios in force were one adult for every 15 children between three and five years of age and one to every 20 children over six. The ratio changed on a case-by-case basis for children with disabilities or medical condition.