Island's private schools has claimed.

Mount St. Agnes Academy principal Sister Judith Rollo said while youth in Bermuda and worldwide have come under fire for disruptive behaviour and not measuring up academically, the finger should be pointed at adults.

"Our youth are surrounded by an adult world mired in materialism and in a selfish search for personal fulfilment,'' Sister Judith told Pembroke Rotarians at their weekly meeting last week.

"Our young people are told that education is important...that the values of honesty, loyalty and hard work are necessary and yet they are surrounded by the glorification of crime, the lure of easy money, and the abdication of responsibility.

"It is the greed of the adult world that gives our students the message that it is more important to be a good consumer than to be a good student,'' Sister Judith said, adding that the amount of time and money local youngsters spend on their bikes is a "scandal''.

She said many parents "blindly caught up in their own desires for social status and for the so-called good life'' think that by granting the every wish and whim of their children they have fulfilled the responsibilities of parenting.

"We give our young girls Barbie dolls with her boyfriends, sports cars and pools, we make trainer bras for first graders and dress our eight year olds like eighteen years olds, allow the networks to air ever more sexually explicit material,'' Sister Judith said.

"How dare we suggest that a good academic record, adherence to civil law, fidelity in relationships are the fibre of a happy and successful life when our teens are daily exposed to media... television, radio, tapes, that measures success more by the dollar sign than by strength of character.. when sports stars can flaunt the laws of society and be portrayed as heroes.. when rock stars receive greater public attention and higher salaries than research scientists.

"How can five to six hours in school undo all of this? Our young are being damaged in all sorts of ways by the societal changes around them. What we adults do, drowns out what we say. But there are rays of hope.'' And she urged Rotarians, and adults in general, to try to make a positive change in the home, at work, and in the community.

Sister Judith said some of the changes which can be made to reduce societal ills are: Raising the legal drinking age or "at least'' ensuring that the present age is enforced; and Changing the minimum age for riding motorbikes from 16 to 18 or 19 years old -- as she suggested to the Archibald Commission in 1984 -- or demanding that the licence of 16-18-year-olds be invalid after dark.

She urged Rotarians to call for more spending on social and psychological services for teens.