the mix-up which humiliated young students at the National Quiz Contest for Schools on Saturday night. The event is elaborately staged and broadcast live on television which, incidentally, was still running a promotion advertisement for the Saturday contest on Sunday. Ministry of Youth and Sport organisers of the contest have apologised to students of two schools who were unable to answer questions because they were not provided with preparation material for vital questions.

It seems that Saltus and Clearwater Middle School were not given complete sets of the research on which questions are based. All the competing schools are supposed to be given identical sets of facts between September and December so that they could prepare for the March contest. Whether or not it is correct to provide sets of research questions to the schools months in advance of the contest is another matter. The fact in this instance is that some were provided with all the facts and some were not.

Clearwater is new as a middle school in the system and obviously hoped to do well but came last out of the six teams competing. Saltus, which is an old hand at the contests, managed to place third behind Warwick Academy and Mount Saint Agnes despite the mix-up.

Teacher Terrylynn Weeks who prepared the Clearwater team has been quoted as saying, " ...they felt so embarrassed they were crying and it was a horrible experience for them. They were publicly humiliated and we want people to know that they did not have a fair chance.'' We appreciate that the Ministry of Youth and Sport is concerned and is investigating but we do not think that the shambles can be blamed simply on a photocopying error. Surely someone should have checked the pages of research produced to the photocopier to be certain that they were all accounted for in every set. This is not something so simple as an inter-office memo but an important publicly staged quiz involving young people and months of work.

Parents are very concerned that this kind of bungling could take place and they are right to be concerned. One would think that there would be a system in place to be sure that each school started with an even chance.

A teacher has said that early on in Saturday's contest it was discovered that Clearwater had not been given the research facts for quite a few of the questions being asked. There was an interval in the contest and rather than embarrass any of the contestants, that was surely the time to stop the contest and delay the broadcast so that the mix-up could be sorted out. It was clearly unfair and some students did not want to continue with the contest because they were embarrassed and their confidence was shaken.

This was not a daily quiz in the confines of a school but a major contest on television billed as Bermuda's National Quiz Contest. This kind of bungling is simply not good enough for Bermuda's students.