We should measure the prosperity of a nation not by the number of millionaires but by the absence of poverty, the prevalence of health, the efficiency of public schools, and the number of people who can and do read worthwhile books — W.E.B. Dubois, Black American sociologist and racial justice advocate.

The world is changing and not necessarily for the best in the short to mid-term.

Bermuda, however, by way of the debacle associated with the failure after eight years to deliver the promised major, systemic and structural changes to our education system, is not changing fast enough. How can we meet these global challenges that will allow us to navigate the emerging risks and opportunities at hand? This applies to our public education system as much as anything else. Even more so. It is the cornerstone of proper human development and of our future prosperity. Noted Pan-Africanist, the legendary W.E.B. Dubois could not be more right.

The losers associated with this debacle? The next generation of Black Bermudian youth in the public school system, the majority being males from low to lower-middle income households over the next decade. That outcome, sadly, is already baked in.

The chief cause lies with the lack of critical thinking, a strong transformative vision of the future and strong leadership from our education leaders among the Black leadership class. This lack is only exacerbated by the challenges that many of these students are finding even before they arrive at the school door. To say that this is a tragedy that has taken place over the last quarter century would be an understatement. This has resulted in the underdevelopment of successive generations of our population in ways that are profound and persistent.

The latest episode began with the Progressive Labour Party in opposition around 2015-2016 just before the 2017 general election. I was an MP then when the impetus for another cycle of restructuring to our public education system – probably the third or fourth attempt over the last four decades – gathered momentum. This was spurred by the growing disenchantment and disillusionment with the middle school system itself.

Frankly , this commitment of the PLP in opposition led by Marc Bean began with a rationale I was never comfortable with. That rationale asserted that the middle school system had to be dismantled because it was allegedly the cause behind the rise of gang formation in the country. That it was claimed was due to the fact that the student bodies consisted of students from various parts of the country and were not neighbourhood schools; a rationale I never bought into. For me that was at best a symptom, not a cause, of gang formation and its consequent violence, most of which remains deeply connected to Bermuda’s drug trade.

Let’s be honest, this has been a public education system that has seen its share of failure since the 1980s, some of it driven by rank racism.

There were two particular egregious failures during the 1990s that stood out.

Systemic failure one

Between 1997 and 2007 Professor Ronald Mincy and his team from Columbia conducted a comparative study of young Black males and their same age peers. Upon submitting their final report in 2010, Mincy’s team revealed that during the period under study, half of all male students in our public high schools who entered S1 failed to graduate.

These were Black males from CedarBridge and to a lesser extent Berkeley Institute. By S4 they had literally disappeared. As the Premier’s consultant (2006-2011), I had personally advised and strongly recommended that Columbia University under Mincy be brought in to conduct the comparative study with the focus on our young Black males. That final report turned out to be revelatory and shocking.

If not for that report, Bermuda would have likely been still totally in the dark about what had occurred. Unfortunately the main recommendation, which was to create a technical institute for the 21st century intended to be sited at the old Harmony hotel in Paget, turned out to be a complete bust under Michael Weeks and his successor Michael Dunkley, the OBA minister. As previously noted, the failure to get our public education system right has a been bi-partisan affair for decades.

Yet, even then another catastrophe was brewing quietly in the middle schools.

Systemic failure two

Just as disturbing as the above was the following fact confirmed by a source at the Bermuda Union of Teachers shortly before the 2017 General Election. That is when Shadow Education Minister Diallo Rabain and myself as Shadow Minister of Workforce Development and Labour during a visit to the union HQ found out that the fundamental problem with the middle school model had to do with its curriculum.

At that meeting we were presented with the news that the middle schools were being run with a curriculum more suited to a junior high school than a middle school. The middle schools, we discovered, had never had a proper middle school curriculum implemented. Remember, by that time the middle schools had been in place for over a decade. As with the graduation rate noted above, Bermudian parents were totally clueless about this.

I have cited the above to highlight these more recent failures including the current one …

A tragedy shrouded in silence

Once we were back in government, with Marc Bean replaced as Opposition Leader in 2016 by David Burt, that education reform train was unstoppable. This time though, upon winning the election under a progressive platform, there was a new model of reform revolving around signature schools. This new bright shiny model would be designed and implemented by an Australian education consultancy. The shift to the unmitigated failed leadership of the new education minister Diallo Rabain would do the rest.

The first bad sign upon becoming minister was his assertion shortly after being sworn in that he would be Minister of Education for a long time. His claim was that the PLP government would not be chopping and changing education ministers. Unfortunately it was one promise that was kept by Burt. Only after the 2025 General Election was Rabain put out of his misery after losing the confidence of those in the department, teachers and the general public. By that time it was seven long years without an end point .

His lack of real leadership at the cost of students who deserved so much better was unforgiving. The Australian consultants belonging to their “Innovation Unit” consultancy must have laughed all the way to the bank. They pocketed $8.4 million dollars for no more than a dysfunctional mess. The torturous path to the signature schools was farcical as was the abandonment of a decision to close down a number of primary schools that was latterly reversed, largely due to nostalgia on the part of too many parents and past students.

The question remains: will the mis-education continue? Can we afford it?

Rolfe Commissiong was Progressive Labour Party MP for Pembroke South East from 2012 to 2020and was an independent candidate for parliament in 2025