The Department of Education is both a waste of money and the reason why the public school system is failing, a panellist at a discussion on Bermuda's economy claimed at the Bermuda College last night.

And if power is taken away from the bureaucracy and put back in the hands of principals and teachers they would be better equipped to raise the standards in public schools, people agreed.

Four panellists - author of the book "A Guide to the Economy of Bermuda" Robert Stewart, Senator and Government spokesperson on Tourism in the Senate Calvin Smith, chartered financial analyst Barbara Tannock, and senior economics lecturer Craig Simmons - spoke on different economic issues at the discussion hosted by the College last night.

The speeches were varied, ranging from an article Mr. Stewart wrote recently on the secret of Bermuda's economic success to Ms Tannock's view that while tourism remained a mainstay of Bermuda's economy, our future lies in international business.

If tourism makes a comeback, she observed, more workers will need to be imported to Bermuda for the simple reason that Bermudians do not want the low-skilled or no-skilled jobs that tourism has to offer. Meanwhile, she said, there is a high turnover of Bermudians in the field of international business. "Do we want the jobs?" she asked. "Yes. Are we getting the skills? No. Is Government supportive of getting us those skills? No."

Instead people with a higher level of education are coming in to Bermuda to do the jobs that Bermudians do not have the skills to do, she observed.

However the topic of education was raised in earnest when panellist Mr. Stewart was asked about comments he made recently in the media regarding the state of the public school system.

"I'm all in favour of public education," Mr. Stewart clarified. "But I'm in favour of bulldozing the Department of Education down at Point Finger Road."

What the Department of Education does, Mr. Stewart said, is take the power away from teachers and principals and gives it to people who are not actually involved in the hands-on running of the schools - much as if, commented panellist Calvin Smith later, banks in Bermuda were being run by a central bureaucracy somewhere in the United States.

"Give public education back to the teachers," said Mr. Stewart. "Empower the teachers, not the bureaucrats... Schools would still be funded by Government, you are just giving parents a choice (about where to send their child to school) and making teachers accountable."

Bermuda, Mr. Stewart has calculated, actually ranks higher on the scale of economic freedom than does Hong Kong - the country earmarked by the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal 2001 Index of Economic Freedom as having the world's freest economy. What that index also found, he said, was that with more economic freedom came more prosperity, as evidenced by the status of countries like Bermuda, Hong Kong and Singapore as amongst the most prosperous in the world.

That means that people in Bermuda are free to travel to ten different stores around the Island, if they wish, to find the best apples and oranges and other products our economy can offer, explained Mr. Stewart - yet in the midst of this great economic freedom the Department of Education actually can and does dictate where our children must be sent to school.

And with that bureaucracy comes cost, Mr. Stewart continued. "The cost of private education is actually less than public... It costs less to send your child to Saltus than it does to Harrington Sound," he said.

The cost of public education may have risen partly because of, for example, the jump in salaries that have to be paid within the Department of Education - a Department which, as Mr. Smith pointed out, has a staff which has increased from three to 50 in recent years.

The effect of that cost is similar to the reason Mr. Stewart later claimed was the best possible defence for Bermuda as a tax haven.

The private school system in Bermuda thrives partly because of the failure of the public school system - a failure which, panellists and audience members largely agreed, was due to the bureaucratisation of the public school system.

As Ms Tannock pointed out, however, people's attitudes towards education need to change as well.

The gaps between public and private education continue to be a problem, she agreed, however she said part of the problem in education in Bermuda remains that "Bermudians do not place enough importance on a qualified education".

The difference can be even further seen along lines of race, she added, saying: "75 percent of white children are in private schools while 75 percent of black children are in public schools. That disparity is not wholly attributable to economic difference."

Mr. Smith, however, disagreed, saying: "We're not stupid, we know the importance of an education."

Economics continue to play a part in why a greater percentage of black children are sent to public schools than are white children, he claimed.

Which led to one audience member bringing the conversation full circle by pointing out: "Shouldn't we be focusing on raising the standard in the public school system and perhaps getting rid of (the Department of Education at) Point Finger Road so that less able children can have the best education they can?"

The effects of the economy on the environment also need to be examined, Bermuda College economics lecturer Craig Simmons said at the discussion.

Calling economics a "dismal science", he said: "There are two elements making economics work. First: it ignores environment, and second: it ignores culture. Until it begins to rain acid we won't take it seriously."

There are already grave concerns that Bermuda has gone beyond her environmental carrying capacity, he said. But he added: "Words like `sustainable development' seem to have lost their appeal."

Mr. Simmons said he often tells his classes tongue-in-cheek that if they want to fix their economy all they have to do is "run an oil tanker into North Rock". Such a disaster would create hundreds of jobs, perhaps for years - but it would destroy the environment of which Bermuda is so proud.

However, he noted, throughout the discussion at the Bermuda College that evening he had heard mostly concerns about bringing more companies to Bermuda.

The approach economics in Bermuda was taking seemed to him "barking up the wrong tree", he said, adding: "I really think we're going the wrong way."