Students graduating from Bermuda College are well-positioned to enter prestigious and creditable universities, according to the school's Director of Communications.

Evelyn James Barnett, last night, hit back at claims made by former Attorney General Phil Perinchief during the parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Education.

In the meeting on Tuesday, Mr. Perinchief, said the two-year associate degrees at the College were "half degrees" that had little credibility with North American Colleges and "zero acceptance" in the UK and Europe.

He then outlined his vision of the Bermuda education system, which would include turning CedarBridge Academy into a tertiary college offering four-year degrees and the current college into a university offering Master's degrees.

Yesterday Ms. Barnett said that the College was currently working towards a four-year degree programme, but that their students were being perfectly placed to enter well-respected schools around the world.

She said: "The College makes its courses and programmes available with the option to seamlessly transition overseas into the junior or third year of university with the securing of approximately 20 "two+two" articulation agreements (many of them with extending scholarship offers) to its students."

"Bermuda College is perfectly positioned as the Island's only public institution of higher learning and the possibility of offering four-year degree programmes is part of the College's 10-year Strategic Plan, which simply reflects the College's ongoing commitment to ensure that Bermuda College's curriculum continues to provide comprehensive education and training that remains responsive to the needs of the community.

"However, our current role in the community is deliberate and as a community college, significant, because it is able to deliver so much more to so many more of our community who would otherwise be excluded under a more selective university model."

According to Ms. Barnett the core curriculum offered at the College include liberal arts, business, hospitality and applied sciences.

These are 100 percent transferable to universities such as Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Johnson & Wales, Mount Saint Vincent University, New England Institute of Technology, Tuskegee University, the University of Kent at Canterbury.

Ms. Barnett added: "These articulation agreements are secured only after lengthy and often arduous scrutiny of course content and syllabi by the faculty of the receiving institution to ensure that the coursework is compatible and meets their standards.

"Then and only then is an agreement signed and the transferability of credits accepted."