Education Minister Terry Lister's bad-tempered response this week to columnist Christian Dunleavy's column calling for an inquiry into public education could possibly be excused if the standards of academic attainment in the public schools weren't so dismal.

For those who may have missed it, Mr. Dunleavy called for the inquiry after it was revealed that the public school graduation rate was 53 percent. To put it another way, just under half of eligible students failed to pass.

Mr. Lister responded by accusing Mr. Dunleavy of, in effect, never having stepped foot in a public school and of being a United Bermuda Party stooge and thus ineligible of making any kind of comment on public education.

He further noted that the public school system ? unlike the private schools ? has no choice on the students it accepts, and that it must deal with a host of social issues and the like that private schools do not have to deal with to anything like the same extent.

He also pointed out the number of students in public schools who excel.

The latter two points are true, of course. But do they excuse the graduation rate?

The answer to that must be no. It would have been so much better if Mr. Lister had acknowledged that the system is far from perfect, that efforts are being made to improve it and to detail what they are.

One of the major problems confronting public schools is the lack of confidence that parents have in them, and who can blame them when their children have a 50 percent chance of graduating?

Rather than attacking his critics, Mr. Lister (who did, to be fair, encourage them to step up to the plate and help in improving the system) would do better to acknowledge the problem and to invite solutions.

In fact, the call for an inquiry of the system would be a good place to start. The current education system has now been in place for eight years, and now is as good a time as any to take stock of whether the changes have worked, whether they need adapting or if it is time to go back to the drawing board.