Six months ago, the Bermuda College was being effectively run by an admittedly uneasy partnership of three; College chairman Randy Horton, president Dr.

George Cook and vice president for student and academic affairs Dr. Donald Peters.

Now all three are gone or will be soon, apparently done in by a combination of internal and external politics and staff unrest.

Dr. Peters was the first to go, surrounded in controversy and still defiant.

He was, it should be remembered, replaced by a qualified Bermudian, Dr. Larita Alford, who is now the longest standing senior college official, with some five months at the College under her belt.

Next to go was Mr. Horton, a Government backbencher, who rightly stood by Dr.

Cook when the pressure was on and is also a running mate and backer of failed Progressive Labour Party leadership challenger Arthur Hodgson.

It is not clear if he was dismissed for either of those reasons or because it was felt he was not getting the job done.

Curiously, he has been replaced by a leading businessman, Jan Spiering, who is one of the leading lights in the local accounting world and in international business.

Why is that curious? Because Mr. Horton replaced Brian Hall, a leading businessmen who was one of the most successful Bermudians in the international insurance business. Mr. Hall, incidentally, seemed to be making great strides as chairman of the College until the 1998 General Election when the PLP was elected. Mr. Horton was appointed a few months later.

And so we have this situation. Mr. Spiering is now chairman of the College, the vice president for student and academic affairs has only been in the job for a few months and there is not, or soon won't be, a president.

At the same time, there do seem to be efforts to bring the College closer and to make it more accountable to the Ministry of Education.

It is not clear that this is the correct approach; there is a good case to be made for keeping institutions of higher learning free from all forms of political and financial interference and influence.

That can only occur if the College is financially independent with an endowment which is sufficient to fund the College so it does not have to rely on any single donor, be it the Government or a private institution.