End education monopolyJune 4, 2002Dear Sir,The purpose of education is to teach students how to think so that they can lead productive and independent lives. Education not only contributes to economic development and progress in a community, but more importantly it has the intrinsic capability of profoundly influencing one's quality of life.

Assuming a child's education and the fulfilment of their potential through training their minds, represents a sacred responsibility. The Government and Ministry of Education are charged with upholding this sacred responsibility through public education, they have a responsibility to our students and community to provide the best means for our youth to become educated. Their attempts to exert greater, burdensome control over home schooling are antithetical to these purposes.

It is increasingly difficult to be optimistic about public schools in Bermuda. Politicians can't even agree on who will run the schools (and none seem to want to anyway) first Madame Premier herself, then Milton Scott "who went on to better things", then the reluctant Paula Cox. We have had school children marching side by side with teachers on Parliament due to educational facilities in the public system that appear to be inherently unequal. We have had huge investments in school buildings but have some schools lacking basic education supplies.

Government (past, present... and probably future) and the Ministry of Education has broken a covenant with students, with our community — failing a civil and moral obligation to Bermuda. The scope, depth, and the evidence of the failure of public education in Bermuda are observable all around us. This failure's more obvious symptoms include: Drug addiction among the young (an attempt to escape the unbearable state of mind unable to cope with existence); Functional illiteracy (an inability to speak or write English coherently); and student violence (an understanding that resorting to physical violence is impractical and immoral). Unable to think, not qualified for college nor a demanding career — our youth are left with crippled minds and inevitably low self-esteem. Widespread drug use, frustrated anger, and violence are anticipated consequences.

Of all our Government's undertakings, none has failed as distrastrously as public education. One would expect the Government's performance in the field of education to be questioned at the least. Instead Point Finger Road continues to be appropriated larger and larger sums. Indeed a large part of the debate about schools should centre on the huge sums of money spent — and seemingly wasted — on education. After all, the most direct impact our Government has on us is the burden they place on our wallets. The free market (parents) overwhelmingly choose private education when individual circumstances allow — nearly 40 percent — even including a significant portion of our Government representatives.

Bermuda needs to decentralise education and open it to competition through providing vouchers for education to parents, breaking up Government's stranglehold. A voucher system would allow parents to choose where their tax dollars are spent for their child's education, helping to eliminate the huge educational bureaucracy of the Government and reduce it to a reasonable size. The amount of money to be saved is inconceivable to the average Bermudian. Public schools would still be available, but with the likelihood that they would be improved by relief from the pressures of overcrowding and the influence of a variety of educational practices in private schools.

Private school tuition would become closer within reach of the majority of Bermudians. Though public education supporters desperately seek salvation — there is none — the internal chaos and increasing politicisation of public education is inherent to its public ownership.

Due to political and bureaucratic interference in Bermuda's public schools, there is a haphazard approach to education where principles of learning are replaced by short-range political and administrative expediency at the expense of our children. The problems with public education in Bermuda will only get worse until the Government monopoly in education is destroyed.

The purpose of the Education Department's proposed regulation of home schooling is to replace parental choice and individual freedom with Government direction. The issue is not really about education at all, but power. If it was otherwise, as the Education Department claims it to be — citing concerns about the learning environment or health, planning and fire safety regulations — they would leave the introduction and compliance of these regulations to the Department of Planning where they belong.

Bermuda and it's children deserve better.

AN INDIVIDUAL

Smith's Parish