January 23, 2002

Dear Sir,

Today's Royal Gazette reports that the Civil Service Head has "started a new training initiative to ensure Bermudians [are skilled and trained to take senior positions in Government." Compare your story of January 21st. It quotes the President of Bermuda College: "If a lot of people fail...then maybe we need to go slower, maybe we need to stretch the course out for longer, or maybe we need better text books." All tests, says the College President, should be taken as often as students may require to pass them.

How should we understand this anomaly? Bermuda needs, but does not have qualified candidates for available positions in the Civil Service (and private business?) at the very time when the President reduces his College's standards to those of a dismal junior high school. These are the ripples of several deeper issues, including tourism and race relations.

The decline in tourism affects many interests, but none more deeply than the people employed in businesses that service tourists. What other jobs could these workers get when banking, insurance, and many supporting businesses require high levels of eduction? What is the hope for their children if service jobs in hotels, restaurants, and stores disappear?

The crux is here: Bermuda's children need quality education to prepare them for jobs in the business community, though educating children is harder because of the standards that were previously enforced. Most jobs in tourism don't require a demanding education. Most tourist workers didn't have one. This issue is sensitive, because of the fear and embarrassment it provokes: Can children satisfy academic standards if their parents did not? Do their parents support schools that require high academic achievement? Bermuda's schools have the double task of teaching effectively while convincing students and parents that the children can learn, and need to learn if they are to participate in Bermuda's new economy.

Failure to address this issue perpetuates the economic differences between the black and white communities, because it prevents many black children from qualifying for jobs that require high quality education. Suspicion, alienation, and anger are the costs. But there is a cure: educate children and young people to standard that would qualify them for jobs that go to foreigners because there are insufficient Bermudians to fill them. Talk to business about the skills they require. Educate for those skills. Forge alliances between business and the schools, so that qualified students are identified, trained, and hired

This problem is as much political as academic. Both Government and the Opposition need to emphasise the relation between education and employment. Sloganeering won't be enough: good education requires money to pay for demanding schools, and the programs that build skills and self-esteem. It requires candour about the issue, and support for anxious parents. The result would be better if the PLP and UBP could agree about the problem and its solution.

Do all this for altruistic reasons. Or ignore them, and do it because the alternative is dangerous.

DAVID WEISSMAN

Sandys and New York City