Measures are to be taken to encourage more schools to take part in the annual quiz competition next year - after only three participated this year.

Director of Youth and Sport Anthony Roberts said a post-mortem would be held on the success of the competition, which was held at Hamilton Princess last Saturday and televised live, with special emphasis on getting more students involved.

He said organisers were expecting eight schools to take part last week, but a number pulled out at the last minute for a variety of reasons.

He said some said their students were simply not ready for the quiz, and others had been affected because their teachers and coaches, who normally assisted, had not been available this year.

Only CedarBridge Academy, Mount St. Agnes and winners Clearwater Middle School took part.

Freddie Evans, head of Whitney Middle School, said his school did not take part because it was in a transition period after he took over the helm last September.

However, he added: "It fell by the wayside, but we have identified some students (who are interested) and we are looking forward to take part next year."

But three schools told The Royal Gazette they had not taken part because they felt the preparation for the quiz - in which students had to memorise 1,500 facts about Bermuda and study the newspaper every day - was far too time consuming.

They each said they would take part if the quiz was more spontaneous and general.

Head of Saltus Grammar School Nigel Kermode said the school also had difficulty finding students who were sufficiently interested.

He said: "There is a view among our students, parents and staff that plugging away at the tons and tons of facts for regurgitation is not the best way to spend your time. The students are given the answers and then they have to spend long periods learning them, but not necessarily digesting them.

"For the quiz, they are learning parrot fashion, and I much prefer critical learning. My feeling is that their time would be perhaps better spent doing things that would be helpful to them in their exams.

"My experience of school quizzes is that they are a general knowledge quiz, where no revision is required. We would support that. That would be a much better use of time."

Bob Lennox, principal of Warwick Academy, echoed Mr. Kermode, and said the school found it very difficult to find six students who had the spare time to dedicate to the five months of revision.

He said: "This is the second time we have not taken part because it's become a bit of an industry - it's taken on a life of its own.

"To compete reasonably well, you have to put more time into it than we are prepared to give. We would be more than interested to take part in what I would call a real quiz, where you are not given the information beforehand.

"Then we could just dutifully turn up for that, it would last an hour or two, and that would be it. A quiz is not something we want to have our kids spending that much time on.

"With homework, exams, piano lessons and other extra-curricular things, our children just don't have that much spare time."

But Mr. Roberts said he had never heard these reasons for not taking part before.

He said his understanding was that some schools could not take part his year for a number of reasons, but were looking forward to joining in next year.

Mr. Roberts said one of the major difficulties was keeping students committed and interested for five months, but he said incentives and additional parental support may help in future.

He said: "I know it takes a lot of hard work by both the parents and students to prepare themselves for it.

"But the important thing is that they know their facts about their Island and facts that they ought to know if they are going to be future leaders of the country.

"They need to know that Bermuda was not just developed in 2003. The quiz contest is intended to do that.

"The questions are posed in such a way that it encourages learning."

He added: "Yes, we want them to be critical thinkers, but I would venture to say that young people would not go to the bother of researching in the libraries (without the quiz).

"I have some reservations about these comments. Life is about competition. There is opportunity for both, for critical thinking and learning the true facts about our Island home. The facts of any country stand for themselves. They are not something to be ignored."

Bermuda High School for Girls principal Roy Napier said his school had not taken part in the competition for years because of its nature.

He said: "We are much more focused on learning concepts and teaching children where to find information, rather than being able to memorise it and being able to regurgitate it."

Mr. Kermode said he realised that some people might claim Saltus was suffering from "sour grapes" after public schools had won in recent years, but he said that was not the case.

"We think the thinking behind the quiz is entirely laudable, but we don't think it is time well spent," he said.

The Royal Gazette was unable, to make contact with Berkeley Institute, Sandys Secondary Middle School, Dellwood Middle School and Bermuda Institute to find out why they had not taken part.