into a primary school by 2015 is underway this week.

The Global Campaign for Education's lofty target is projected to cost $8 billion per year and will be met by increasing aid to basic education, debt relief and changes in International Monetary Fund policies to protect education spending.

And while there are no problems in Bermuda with children not having access to education, Bermuda Union of Teachers general secretary Mike Charles pointed out that the importance of education still needed to be stressed locally.

"Fortunately for us we do not have the acute problem that many other countries of the world have in getting children to school,'' he said.

"But we do need to fix it here so that everyone is on an equal playing field.'' Mr. Charles praised the Government's efforts in education.

"They've started on the way with smaller classes and programmes to address illiteracy and maths,'' he said, "and we are already beginning to see some improvement.

"We just need to keep a close eye and right this ship that is tilting to one side,'' he continued. "It will take some time to get straight, but we are moving in the right direction.'' Mr. Charles added that the importance of improving local public education would drastically increase over the next two years.

He said "average Bermudians'' who educated their children privately would not be able to afford a private education in the future as the cost of it would likely rise to between $10,000 and $12,000 over the next two years''.

"That's why the public schools need to get their act together,'' he said.

"For people who would just begin to put their children into private school, say, two years from now, the fees will run them close to $100,000.

"And that's before the child even gets to college,'' he noted. "We have to do the job and we have to get it right. We have no choice.

"If we don't give our children a proper foundation educationally, in this Country, it will amount to the same as not educating them at all in other places, for the jobs they will be equipped to do will be no different.''