A broadcast campaign aimed at greater public involvement in the island’s public education reform launches today.

The series of short episodes on ZBM, accompanied by weekly radio interviews, was designed to “reach as many people in Bermuda as possible, with the different communications channels for different audiences”, according to Lisa DeSilva, the head of the Education Reform Unit.

Ms DeSilva said that the reshaping of the island’s public education system now under way was a change on a par with the opening of CedarBridge Academy in 1997, which rewrote much of government schooling.

“We went from a two-tier system to a three-tier system, and this process is going from three tiers back to two,” she said.

“CedarBridge is one school. With this, we’re talking about the whole island.”

A series of five episodes — each to last about a minute — will air on the Bermuda Broadcasting Company’s nightly Bermuda Tonight, starting this evening.

Ms DeSilva said: “This is a way to reach a segment of Bermuda that we might not have.

“We wanted it short, sweet and to the point, engaging a personality people are familiar with and who can get the message across.”

Mikaela Ian Pearman, a public relations professional, was taken on to present the episodes after a team of teachers partnered with the education reform unit in June.

Ms DeSilva said that the campaign was designed to boost public engagement in the shifts.

She highlighted: “The biggest challenge is changing people’s hearts and minds about reforming education and why it’s necessary, and the way to do that is to become involved.”

The series is to run until February 23, with each episode highlighting an area of work by the school transformation team.

Topics will include:

• Curriculum and learning experiences

• Teaching and learning

• Assessment

• Learning environments

• Graduation

The weekly segments will be accompanied by interviews each Thursday morning on Power 95 and Ocean 89FM highlighting people involved in the reforms, who will field phoned-in questions.

Ms DeSilva said: “We’re hoping that the people who have seen episodes during the week will have things they want to ask about.”

The upcoming changes in evaluation policy, covered in the third episode, deal with the switch away from “a model of assessment that’s been in play for the last 200 years”, she added.

Ms DeSilva explained: “It was about written assessment testing of students’ memory and how well they memorise, which is not always the best method of gleaning from children what they can do.

“The new policy is putting students at the centre of their learning and how they learn.”

Ms DeSilva said the series was also a chance to showcase the work of the 12-member education reform team.

Education reform will be gradual and phased, year by year, starting with P1 and Year 7 and moving up through the system as years transition.

However, Ms DeSilva said the reforms had no end date.

She added: “We’re working on this process to make sure it happens on a continuous basis, updating what we do in a way that involves everyone’s voices.”