House: long-awaited Education Authority to become reality
The creation of an Education Authority, a government-funded “statutory body corporate” that will ultimately replace the Department of Education, will begin in earnest this September with the tabling of legislation, the education minister told the House of Assembly this morning.
Diallo Rabain said the authority was envisaged as a “public body held at arm's length from day-to-day politics”, with a “merit-based” board of nine appointed members.
The authority would be accountable to Parliament through its public board meetings and annual reports.
Its board would be tasked with developing the authority’s operational design in consultation with stakeholders, rather than “political actors”.
Members will come with expertise, including “supporting vulnerable students”, with a Bermuda College representative and members who have private and public-sector experience.
The board will also have a Commissioner of Education as “a non-voting, ex officio member”.
Mr Rabain added: “An Education Authority provides continuity across political cycles. It provides a governance structure whose remit is education, and only education.
“It provides long-term stewardship of the system, insulated from the pressures of short political timescales, and it provides a single, accountable point of professional leadership at the top of the public school system.”
It marked Mr Rabain’s first public move as minister since he retook the portfolio two weeks ago, in a Cabinet shuffle after Crystal Caesar resigned from the post.
The authority was first envisaged as independent, as Mr Rabain told legislators in the House in 2019, in accordance with the Future State Report released that year by the BermudaFirst advisory group.
Mr Rabain said today it would be set up as a quango, or semi-autonomous public body, as he outlined a four-phase process to start in the first 18 months after the legislation’s commencement — with “a single, limited 12-month extension available”.
The board would design, but not implement, a school board framework for all schools. The next step, requiring further legislation, would finalise the school board model.
Stage three would transfer functions from the Department of Education to the authority, with school boards becoming operational.
Stage four would rescind the department, with the Education Authority to assume “full operational control”.
Mr Rabain emphasised that the beginning stage would come with no operational transfers or changes to the status of staff or to aided schools.
He said there would be no further move without consultation, and that “before the first stage expires, the Government must table the next stage's legislation or publicly explain the delay”.
Mr Rabain addressed the topic of aided schools, defined as institutions where the property is held by a board of trustees or governors while the school is wholly or partially funded by public money.
He told MPs: “Aided schools are recognised in the Act as a distinct policy issue, to be addressed in their own right, not folded into general reform.
“The authority will be under a statutory duty to consult them, and their long experience of independent school-level governance will provide valuable input as the board designs the future school board framework for the wider public school system.”
Mr Rabain said he had met this week with heads of aided schools, and had consulted with unions.
He added that he had shared the same briefing with the Opposition, and had restarted an “Opposition education WhatsApp group that existed before my move to the Cabinet Office” — telling One Bermuda Alliance MPs that the “offer to be collaborative is open”.
He also summed up background to the authority’s creation, telling the House: “Substantive engagement took place between 2021 and 2024, and those contributions have informed the current draft Bill.
“Following a change in ministerial portfolios in early 2025, that working group was stood down.
“Following the most recent change in ministerial portfolios two weeks ago, the working group’s data and the drafting status of the Education Authority Bill have been reviewed.
“The work has now reconvened with the same partners.”
Mr Rabain told MPs: “This Bill is not about who runs the system. It is about how the system serves the child.
“I look forward to returning to this honourable House in September to formally table the Education Authority Bill and to the substantive, evidence-based debate that will follow.”
• To read the minister’s statement in full, see Related Media
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