Sandys Middle School principal Melvin Bassett was absolutely correct to warn that the growing segregation of Bermuda?s schools will end in social disaster.

Mr. Bassett joins a growing number of people ? including this newspaper ? who are worried about this phenomenon, which has seen all of the work to desegregate the schools over the last 30 years rolled back.

Mr. Bassett rightly made the point that this is not purely a racial issue: It?s not just white parents who have largely abandoned the public school system but middle class black parents. This is a class division as well.

In the end, it comes down to a question of confidence. The fact that many teachers, education officers and principals have their own children in private schools or even in home schools speaks volumes on that point.

This division does not mean that the public schools are incapable of turning out strong graduates who will succeed in the Bermuda economy. They can and do produce good students, albeit too few.

But what it does mean is that when the graduates of private and public schools finally interact in a meaningful way, they will be in their late teens or early 20s.

And this will set up divisions on the community that will be well nigh impossible to bridge.

It will also create an inferiority complex that will do tremendous damage to Bermuda?s future adults at a time when the economy of Bermuda increasingly needs more brains and less brawn in the workplace.

It is to be hoped that Education Minister Terry Lister ? who knows Mr. Bassett well ? will listen carefully.