Thursday's newspaper featured some good news about education. Six 14- and 15-year-old students at Berkeley Institute took their GCSE maths exams a year earlier than most people around the world are expected to and passed, with some of the students getting the highest possible grade – an A*.

People who finished school 15 years or more ago will be all too familiar with the GCSE's predecessor; the old GCE O Level exam. And students in private schools have been taking GCSEs ever since they were introduced.

But when Bermuda restructured its education system and tried to introduce a Bermuda developed curriculum and qualification, GCSEs disappeared in public schools, and with them, one of the few credible ways to measure performance in public schools.

Before then, there was still a lack of equivalence, because the GCE exams, which were harder than the GCSE, were mainly taken only in the "academic" public schools – Berkeley and Warwick Academy. Few students in general secondary schools did.

They were replaced by the Bermuda School Certificate and a dizzying array of assessment tests such as the Terra Nova tests, which did more to confuse than to enlighten. Graduation rates too were difficult to assess. What was still clear, however, was that public schools were failing to deliver enough students who were adequately prepared for work or further education.

Beginning this year, that will begin to change. GCSEs are back in a big way as the public school system adopts the Cambridge curriculum, which administers GCSE exams.

This will give Bermuda the means to measure progress with other countries and it will give students an internationally recognised educational qualification, although it is worth remembering that GCSEs are in many ways the beginning of education and not the end.

There are many reasons why it has taken Bermuda so long to get to this point. In part it was because of the desire to have a genuinely Bermudian curriculum. It was also due to the fact that the restructured system of primary, middle and senior schools did not lend itself to a system based on GCSEs and either A Levels or the International Baccalaureate. Instead a North American system leading to high school graduation was the preferred means, assisted by the fact that many of Bermuda's teachers were trained in this North American system.

But it is also possible that the education system as a whole was unwilling to take up a GCSE-style of curriculum because it was afraid the results would be poor and that public schools compare unfavourably to private schools in Bermuda and to the rest of the world. That also helps to explain why curriculum is only being applied for English, maths and science, at least at the outset. To be sure, some phasing-in is required and these are subjects where the Bermudian component of the curriculum is smallest. But part of it is due to fear of failure.

That's why the success of those six Berkeley students is so important. It gives the schools the confidence to know their students can excel in these exams. And it says that the middle schools, often so maligned, can produce good students.

To be sure, care needs to be taken not to exaggerate this success. Only six students took the exam and they were given considerable extra support. But it is also heartening that they were willing to take on the extra work and their teachers, one of whom was the president of the Bermuda Union of Teachers, were too.

Premier Dr. Ewart Brown said last week he was disappointed there had not been more progress in education and that he believed people in education were not prepared to make the extra effort to improve the system. Six students at Berkeley and their teachers say that Dr. Brown is at least a little bit wrong. What's needed now is for more people to join the crusade.