You have to pity Terry Lister.

A week after the Education Minister saw teachers withdraw their services and then win a pay agreement which seemed to go against the Government?s position, the Minister had to answer Parliamentary Questions in Parliament which again raised doubts about the success of public schools.

Mr. Lister revealed that graduation rates from public schools plummeted after an additional year was added to the senior school system and the Bermuda School Certificate was introduced in 2003.

Just 26 percent of eligible students graduated in 2003, after a ?disruptive year for students?. Mr. Lister noted that 100 students opted to leave the public school system without undertaking the additional year.

?In the same year we were informed that there was a marked increase in enrolment to alternative programming,? Mr. Lister said.

It is reasonable to expect similarly disappointing results this year, which has been equally disruptive with school days lost first to Fabian and then to the teachers? strike.

That?s too bad. The addition of the extra year in public schools was designed to give schools more time to prepare for the workplace or further education. But many students clearly did not see the value and voted with their feet.

It should be noted that they did not reject the value of further education and enrolled in further education, a statistic validated by the numbers of students enrolling at the adult Education School, which has seen student numbers soar, especially among males, who now make up the majority of its students.

That at least means that students are getting educated, but it is depressing that it is not in public schools. To be sure, some 17-year-olds no longer want or need the discipline of ?regular? schools. if they can get equally valid educational achievements outside of the formal school system, then that?s fine. But it is worrying that so many are leaving.

What?s even more worrying is that it is not clear how rigourous either the BSC or the General Equivalency Diploma are. Certainly, the schools? reluctance to have more students embark on the British GCSEs, which are themselves a watered-down version of the old GCE Levels, suggests that the standards are not that high.

And the results of the US Terra Nova assessment tests demonstrate that Bermuda?s students in middle and senior schools continue to lag behind their US counterparts.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that students are not being sufficiently challenged in public school. And yet, when they move schools or go abroad to boarding schools (at enormous expense to their parents) they show they can compete with the best of their peers. All of this comes at a time when the demands of the Bermuda economy are changing. Increasingly, employers want skilled workers who are literate in English, maths and computers while traditional blue collar and service jobs are on the wane.

If Bermuda cannot educate its people for these jobs, then there will be increasing displacement with all of the dangerous social ramifications that that connotes.

This is especially relevant given all of the recent debate over alienated young black males, who lag behind all whites and black females in educational achievement.

If Bermuda wants to prevent the growth of a black male underclass, it has to start in the education system and it has to show that everyone, black and white, male and female, can have happy and productive lives in Bermuda.