Will Bermuda sink or swim with current high school graduation rates and increasing numbers of foreign workers?

Intern Jasmine Furbert posed the question yesterday to an audience of executives and students at Ace Global Headquarters.

Ms Furbert was among nine students who took part in the 2006 Summer Internship Programme (SIP) hosted jointly by the Ace Group, Bank of Bermuda and Deloitte, who presented their final report and recommendations to revamp the Bermuda Careers Centre (BCC) website.

The SIP programme enables 12 Bermudian university students to benefit from a unique work experience in the insurance and financial services industry and participate in a community-based project. This year the BCC was selected as the project of choice.

"Bermuda needs to make information on educational opportunities and career options readily available. The Bermuda Careers Centre is an excellent way of doing this," Ms Furbert said.

She added the BCC was an important step for students in establishing career paths, while it also helped parents help their children.

For counsellors it provided innovative methods to motivate students. And it also helped those wanting to change careers.

Ms Furbert said employers not only wished access to local talent, but job seekers needed to be aware of the standards and criteria they were expected to meet.

The interns' final report and contributions to the development of the website will be utilised in the Ministry of Labour and Training Workforce Development Task Force.

The students concluded that parents and counsellors have a significant role to play in the selection of colleges and career paths and that a revamped BCC website should be easy to navigate and should reach out effectively to its target audience of students, parents, counsellors, job seekers and employers.

"The BCC wants to ensure all employment sectors have a pool of well educated and trained young Bermudians from which to staff their organisations."