Shadow Education Minister Grant Gibbons is calling on Government to fulfil its promise to release in full a damning report on the Island’s public schools.

Education Minister Randy Horton has promised that the document — penned by UK professor David Hopkins and his team of experts — will be tabled in the House of Assembly.

But Dr. Gibbons said last night: “There is no excuse for continued delay. Minister Horton promised that he would table the full report in the House of Assembly as soon as it was printed, but that certainly could have been done by now.

“And posting it on Government’s website would only take a few minutes. If he had the will, he would find a way.”

The former Opposition leader’s call follows comments made last week by Anthony Wolffe, acting president of Bermuda Union of Teachers (BUT), who said teachers were still waiting to see the full report.

A summary of the findings of Professor Hopkins and his team - commissioned to find out why more than half the Island’s public senior school students fail to graduate - was released in a television and radio broadcast on May 3.

Dr. Gibbons said: “Since Government used the Hopkins Report to assign blame for the education crisis to teachers, principals and ministry officials, it is disrespectful in the extreme not to share the detailed findings with the same groups.

“In fact, they should have been fully informed before the public announcement. After all the BUT, the Association of School Principals and ministry officials will necessarily play a key role in implementation and if the Government expects to be successful, they will need everyone’s co-operation.”

He added that the report itself included a recommendation for “transparent accountability at all levels” and that to continue to hold it back from educators and the public was hypocritical.

“The time for excuses has passed,” he said. “If Minister Horton wants to retain his credibility, he will act to release the full report immediately. To fail to do so is an open invitation to wonder what secrets the Government is now trying to hide.”

A Government spokesman could not say yesterday when the full document would be published. “The report will be tabled in the House,” he said.

The public is still waiting for the release of a report into how CedarBridge Academy - the Island’s largest public school - came to be infested with mould, forcing its closure last November.

Mr. Horton told a press conference on April 13 that the document had been delivered to him by an independent panel but would not answer a question as to whether it would be disclosed in full.