Education Minister Jerome Dill has vowed that Government will keep its commitment to CedarBridge Academy.

Responding to recent concerns by CedarBridge principal Ernest Payette about overcrowding and the need for more teacher assistants at the school, Mr. Dill said people needed to remember that in addition to taking in students from all of the former public high schools, CedarBridge was catering to young people who would not normally be allowed to return to the system.

"I don't think there's much we can do in terms of expanding at CedarBridge,'' he admitted.

But Mr. Dill noted that education officials planned to meet shortly with Berkeley's board of governors to propose a "workable'' plan aimed at admitting more students there.

However, he declined to discuss the proposal publicly before that meeting.

Overcrowding was one of several issues in a package of concerns Mr. Payette had brought to the Education Ministry's attention, Mr. Dill said. And the Ministry was reviewing them.

But he said the Ministry, independent of Mr. Payette's proposals, recognised its work at CedarBridge was not complete.

"I appreciate that there's more to be done,'' Mr. Dill said. "Just as I always have on behalf of my Government colleagues, I will be doing all that I can to ensure that we don't fall down due to a lack of resources.'' He also pointed out that Mr. Payette admitted Government had done well in financially supporting CedarBridge.

Government had spent some $70 million building CedarBridge and an additional $6 million on turning old high schools into middle schools.

More than $1 million had also been spent on preparing teachers and teacher assistants for the inclusion of special students into the regular school setting, he added.

Meanwhile, Bermuda Union of Teachers general secretary Sen. Milton Scott pointed out that concerns about CedarBridge were not new.

"(Officials at the Education Ministry) denied them initially, but the truth is starting to surface,'' he said. "The matter about class size and staffing can only be resolved by Cabinet, no matter what Mr. Dill says.

"Those concerns were pointed out before the school opened. Equipment is still not there. And you can't have any more than 12 to 15 students in the body shop.'' Because of space constraints, some students were only attending classes three days a week, Sen. Scott claimed.

"It is a beautiful facility,'' he added, "but Bermuda has been sold a bad bag of goods.''