?I consider it a privilege to be involved in shaping young minds,? says the 54-year-old. ?Not only Berkeley Institute but this community, the Bermuda community, has been very good to me and I believe that I have a responsibility to give back.?

Mr. White graduated from the school in 1968 but admits he didn?t fulfil his academic potential while there on a government scholarship. ?I was more interested in what things the Berkeley Institute had to offer,? he says. ?But even saying that, Berkeley Institute instilled in me in that time an expectation of excellence and a commitment to excellence and that has served me well through my life.?

It?s that expectation ? and an abiding love of his former school ? which has driven him in his voluntary role at Berkeley.

The school, a symbol of pride for blacks in Bermuda for many decades, became non-selective in 1998. Mr. White says critics of Berkeley and its recent disappointing graduation rates must take that on board when comparing it to its halcyon days as an educational facility for the brightest minds.

He also claims that those arriving at Berkeley from the Island?s middle schools are not always prepared for secondary school, with some up to three years behind the level they should be.

?One of the things that I think is important to understand is that at the senior level we are dependent upon the work that?s done at the lower levels,? he says.

?Basically, it?s impossible to fix that in a four-year programme. You can?t blame the senior school if the people who are supposed to be doing the preparatory work to get them into senior school are failing. That is one of the issues that we are battling with.

?The other thing is the general change in society as it relates to values. Just social standards as regards discipline, the ability to discipline children and the ability to expect children to respect their elders. Today that whole respect of the elderly has disappeared.?

He says another challenge is keeping male students at the school long enough for them to graduate.

?We have had to come to the understanding that males learn differently to females,? he says. ?We may have to start thinking outside the box as to how we retain these male students. It?s a very serious problem that we have to correct.?

Mr. White wants pupils of Berkeley to appreciate that they follow in some heavyweight footsteps, from top civil servants to businessmen and Government leaders ? and the new building will have a history room chronicling the school?s heritage for that very purpose.

?Particularly in the black community, we have let all our institutions slip by the wayside and so it?s important that our community recognises the contribution that this school has made to education,? he says.

?It?s important for the students who have come to the school to understand they they come as a result of the foresight, of the vision, of the sacrifice, that many of our forefathers or ancestors have made. Students don?t appreciate that.?

In 2002, the board of nine governors ? which is elected by the school?s parent body, the Berkeley Educational Society ? adopted six core values after hiring an external consultant to get the school back on track.

Mr. White believes those values ? to preserve the legacy, history and heritage of the school; to promote teacher excellence; to promote programme excellence; to promote excellent student conduct, leadership and development; to maintain a physical plant appropriate for the delivery of the senior school curriculum and to preserve self-governance via the governors ? will help Berkeley make giant leaps forward in the coming years.

?I?m prepared to say that in three to five years I expect significant improvements in the graduation rates,? he says. ?It has been considered a risk to put your children in public education at the middle and senior levels.

?The Berkeley Institute over the last seven years has instituted an infrastructure and core values that will ensure that the graduates that we produce in the coming years will certainly be as illustrious and capable as the graduates have been in the past.

?I believe that as people see the graduation rates come up, as they see the results of the core values that have been implemented. I think more and more people ? of all persuasions ? will be looking to send their children to Berkeley Institute.

?Why would you spend $12,000 to $16,000 a year to send your children to a private school if you could get the same quality of education in the public education system??

Mr. White has some choice words for Berkeleylites who believe the school is no longer a bastion of high-quality education.

He questions their right to comment if they are not directly involved in helping the school and quotes a line from the Berkeley song: ?Oft as we can we?ll come back again/Here oft you?ll find us.?

?The fact of the matter is that many of us have sung that for four or five years for assembly but we have forgotten,? Mr. White added.

Next week, Berkeley?s new school building will open to students, three years late and hugely over budget.

Mr. White is reluctant to discuss the controversy surrounding its delay but admits that it caused pupils and staff to suffer ?cramping? at the old school building.

?Obviously we would like to have been able to move sooner but I think the important thing for Bermuda to know is that education has been taking place up until we closed down the old site,? he says.

?We have always been anxious to move into this new facility but the quality of the school is not determined solely by the physical plant. It?s more important what happens in the walls of the physical plant ? the teachers, the values that the school holds.?

The new school is owned by the Government but the Institute remains an aided educational facility, a status normally reserved for schools which own the land upon which they stand. The board of governors recently signed a management agreement for the new building.

Mr. White agrees that the new structure is impressive but says the school?s future success is dependant upon more than the $121 million facility. ?Yes, we have a wonderful building that we are going to be moving into but we have also put in place an infrastructure that will ensure that the core values are met.

?While I hope and expect that this facility will inspire them (the students)... We are not taking that for granted. We know we can?t do it alone. There has to be a buy-in of what we are attempting to do at a parental level. Parents have to be involved and I guess to validate those principles that we are trying to instil.?

He wonders aloud whether white people will ever send their children to the school in significant numbers and says historically they never did because they ?weren?t comfortable with having their children educated by predominantly black staff and so forth?.

?What you see (at Berkeley) is actually a reflection of the social issues that we have in this country,? he says. ?What happens at Berkeley Institute is basically a microcosm of what happens on a much larger scale to our community.?

For now, the school will concentrate on settling into its new premises while it awaits the result of a recommendation that it be fully accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools in the US.

?If that recommendation is accepted we will be the first school in Bermuda to have gone through a process of evaluation by an external accrediting body,? says Mr. White.

He warns that if public education doesn?t improve, Bermuda will be ?heading for a very serious crisis?.

But he adds: ?I believe in all my heart that we can make this happen.?

Asked if Berkeley can produce a future Premier, he doesn?t miss a beat. ?Absolutely. Without a shadow of a doubt. Unequivocally.?

But he adds: ?What we need at Berkeley Institute is not just academics. Part of this legacy and history is about us creating a rounded graduate.

?Yes it?s about the academics but it?s also about citizenship, it?s about respecting your peers and being a productive member of whatever society you are living in. It?s about honesty and courage and ethics and all of those things. It?s a whole package.?