Shadow Education Minister Grant Gibbons last night urged Government to urgently replace or redesign the "substandard" Bermuda School Certificate.

The Opposition MP spoke out a day after Labour and Immigration Minister David Burch told Rotarians he was aware of the "challenges with the standard of education in Bermuda" in a speech about the lack of decent first jobs for young Bermudians.

Dr. Gibbons said the public school graduation results released this week — which revealed that 96 percent of students who started senior year four graduated with a BSC this year, compared to 81 percent last year and 58 percent in 2006 — were good news.

But he added: "What do these high graduation percentages really mean? Are we fooling ourselves and are we sending young graduates out there with false expectations about the underlying quality of their BSC diploma?

"Does the standard of the BSC adequately prepare these young men and women to compete for jobs and college placement when measured against international standards? "Graduation percentages may be meaningless if young Bermudians' skills in math, English and technology aren't properly benchmarked against international standards and don't measure up to what's required in the real world."

Concerns about the standard of the BSC and how it measures up worldwide have been voiced for years. In the highly critical 2007 Hopkins report on public schools, it was described as being "an attainable qualification that denotes a broad and balanced education and a demonstrable though fairly low level of achievement".

The report said it did not compare favourably with the qualifications available in the Island's private schools, such as the International Baccalaureate.

Education Minister Randy Horton told this newspaper last December that, as part of the reform of the education system post-Hopkins, a working party was looking at the BSC and considering whether to replace it with an internationally recognised qualification.

The Minister was off the Island yesterday so we were unable to get an update on the working party's progress ten months on.

A Ministry of Education spokesman said last night: "We will be in a better position to reply in the morning. However, it is worth noting that the BSC is widely recognised worldwide."

Dr. Gibbons said it was no secret that the business community had serious concerns about the quality of the BSC. "Senator Burch was obviously referring to those concerns in his remarks to Rotary," he said.

Dr. Gibbons added: "Ten months is long enough — but any further delay in either replacing or redesigning the BSC is going to consign yet another year, or more, of graduates to false hopes and a substandard qualification.

"It's grossly unfair to students and in the end will result in yet more non-Bermudians having to be imported for jobs that should be filled by young Bermudians."

The former United Bermuda Party leader reiterated his call for an independent standards board for public education in Bermuda. "Confusing statistics on graduation rates and concerns about quality are further reasons to create (a board)," he said.