the role of race in education. In three stories, Carol Parker Trott looks at the general education system and focuses on three schools: the well-integrated Warwick Academy, which completed its move into the private sector this year, Berkeley Institute, the leading academic Government school whose students are predominantly black, and Bermuda High School, a private school which has historically had a high proportion of white students.

"Education in Bermuda has tended to preserve rather than change the system of privilege for the white group in the economic, political and social life of the community.'' That statement was written more than 25 years ago as a part of University of Nottingham's student Maurice F. Hankey's thesis on education and integration in Bermuda.

And while many will argue that the situation has not changed much today, educators from both the public and private school systems told The Royal Gazette they believed that great strides in race relations had and can continue to be made through the education system.

But, they quickly added, that there was much work to be done and the easiest place to start was at the primary level where there was less emotional baggage.

"It has to start with the young people,'' one school principal said. "I believe it is too late for many older people who are stuck in their ways.'' And while neither the Education Department nor individual schools keep nor wanted to disclose statistics on the race of staff or students, educators interviewed noted that progress had been made mainly in the integration of primary school students in both private and public schools.

School officials at primary and high schools said they were using a range of efforts -- from introducing a multi-cultural curriculum to staging cultural events -- to encourage respect and understanding among students of various ethnic backgrounds.

But they also noted that outside influences, particularly in children's homes, also played a key role in how the students received such efforts.

"Students are in school for about eight hours a day,'' said Berkeley Institute principal Mrs. Michelle Gabisi. "They're home with their parents for the rest of the time. And if parents are going through significant events, then children are affected.

"And with all this talk of racism and parents who are living and working in situations where they may have been affected by institutionalised racism or racism of any sort, and obviously kids know about it, and therefore they might from time to time bring some of those issues into the school environment. But if there are ever problems that we are aware of, we try to deal with it.'' Senior Education Officer Dr. Joseph Christopher stressed that integration of staff and students was equally important.

"There has been very little movement in some schools toward integration of staff,'' he said. "The Department of Education appoints persons to school.

But for the aided schools the Department just approves appointments (made by the schools' board of governors).

"So in terms of aided schools, the integration of staff has tended to be very slow.

"In public schools integration has been fairly good in most of the schools.

The Ministry tends to ensure that Bermudians are employed as long as they are qualified.'' Mrs. Gabisi, Dr. Joseph Christopher, as well as other educators in the public school system stressed that they believed changing secondary level education was Bermuda's last hope for true integration in public schools.

Education Minister Jerome Dill, who revealed he was prepared to look at keeping statistics on race in schools, said: "At the primary level we have had the most success because children attend on the basis of zoning.

"The argument you here at the secondary level is the reason why some white people don't send their kids to black schools is because the standards are too low. If that is true, it will certainly be untrue by the time we complete restructuring of schools.

"I anticipate that people are going to want to send their children to the restructured schools.'' He noted that Government was prepared to spend millions on improving various aspects of the school system, including setting up a core curriculum at the senior secondary level.

But some argued that restructuring of the public school system will only bring more "white flight''.

And one educator who asked to remain anonymous observed that historically whenever there were any major changes in the public school system, traditionally white schools opted out.

In addition to that, the educator said, there was still the perception in the black community that a school that was white was more acceptable and, therefore blacks who could afford to also entered the private school system.

The best chance of changing this, the educator added, was to provide "quality'' education.

This, Mr. Dill said, was his aim.

He stressed that his goal was for every student in the public school system to have the opportunity to a level of education "that is at least as good as in the best private school''.

Mrs. Michelle Gabisi