The vision of the Minister of Education, Paula Cox, to make the public system of education the first choice of the public is neither laudable, nor correct, as mentioned in a recent editorial of January 30 headed "Education for All". Her vision is simply a repetition of the clich?-ridden nonsense with which parents have had pushed at them for years. For example, my friend and ex-colleague at Shell, Hav Trott, found in 1997 almost everyone involved with public education not the slightest bit interested in the problems that he was facing with the pubic education system.

Accountability and responsibility were evaded as politicians and administrators ducked and weaved to avoid taking any action which would result in improvements to the system. He ultimately withdrew his child from the public system - a decision he has never regretted (the details of his frustrations with the Department were detailed in a letter to the Editor dated January 22, 2001). His experience was far from unusual.

If the Minister is serious about improving the quality of public schools, she would immediately abolish the Department of Education. This monstrosity has dashed the future of too many Bermudian children for too many years. If a leader of the Ku Klux Klan ever wanted to hobble the prospects of black Bermudians, he could not come up with a more effective or diabolical means of doing so than creating a Department of Education similar to one we have suffered from over the past 15 years or so. For years, too many children have had a fraudulent education foisted on them and, by rights, their parents should complain to the Consumers' Affairs Bureau for having been sold a defective product.

Not only is the product defective, it costs much more than the superior version offered under the private system. What on earth is going on here and how do we get value for the almost $2 million per week of taxpayers' money that the public system costs?

Many are puzzled by the fact that most teachers and most education officers are educated, capable, sensible, and interested in improving education and yet things seem to fall apart. The answer is complicated and requires an understanding of bureaucracy.

In a bureaucracy, problem cases are not solved on an individual basis. The main concern of the bureaucrat is to comply with rules and regulations, whether they are reasonable or not in the circumstances. If he fails to do that his career is prejudiced. Everyone has to be treated in the same way, although the problems clearly differ between one individual and another. Private schools have the advantage of being more flexible. In other words, there is no Department of Education breathing down their neck or strangling them with red tape. That is why they are more effective educators.

Under the current system, public schools will never be able to be on an equal footing with the private schools. That will only happen when each public school and each head teacher is held accountable to parents for what goes under his or her authority. All of the platitudes about codes of conduct, discussions with parents' associations, and with principals are pure gibberish designed for the purpose of placating, or misleading, the public into believing that things will change for the better. Many parents understand the confidence trick being played on them, and those who can afford it send their children to private school because they do not wish to play Russian roulette with their future. The more gullible members of the public, or those intimidated by government stalling tactics, will tend to accept the nonsense put out by the Minister but will find out in due course, and too late, that their children have been short-changed.

A recent editorial stated that those who spend thousands for the education of their children "are the same ones who would . hold educators accountable" and would be a "force for excellence". I thought the function of the Department of Education was exactly that, namely to hold teachers accountable and be a force for excellence. As it manifestly fails to carry out these functions, surely that is the strongest possible argument for closing its operations down forthwith.

I have tried to obtain figures about the numbers of staff at the Department and the many teachers who send their children to private school, but the Department of Education does not keep such statistics. I would have thought that as a barometer of confidence, such figures would be at the fingertips of everyone who worked there. As parents, teachers and officials who opt out of the Government system are making a highly rational and commendable decision as they have intimate knowledge of the dog's breakfast that goes by the name of public education, and as concerned parents they want the best possible education for their children.

It is those who are poor, who are na?ve, who do not understand what is going on, and who have faith in government promises that are being royally shafted. These innocents are given the status of cattle, and as such they and their children must he herded, stalled, and fed by someone who has a superior idea of how to educate their children.

The Minister has about as much chance of reforming the public system as she has of flying. All the codes of conduct in the world, all the increased spending, and all of the additional staff will make not one iota of difference to changing things; ten years from now the then Minister will be giving similar undertakings which will never be implemented. In the meantime, the same bureaucrats who believe that they should continue to run the life of Bermuda's children because parents are too dull-witted to be trusted with that responsibility will still be in office, and the aspirations of another generation of Bermudians will be betrayed yet again.

The only worthwhile reform that can be made is to dispatch the demolition squad to Point Finger Road.