The Education Review team made ten recommendations to fix the public school system.

The first six of them need to be implemented as soon as possible in order to improve the current system, Professor David Hopkins said last night.

The recommendations were:

Dramatically improve the quality of teaching

With one in four lessons deemed inadequate the review team said it was vital principals ensured their teachers delivered challenging and informative lessons.

The team said the progress of each and every student should be monitored and reviewed regularly.

It also said internal audit on the effectiveness of teaching, with external corroboration of the findings, was needed.

Teachers should also be subjected to performance reviews throughout the upcoming school year and teachers deemed “excellent” should be used to help others improve.

>Better leadership from principals required

<$>The quality of this leadership was deemed “pivotal” by the team who stressed the need for improved leadership immediately.

This would require in depth appraisals from a school improvement adviser or another principal.

The team also recommended that each principal be paired with a consultant from abroad to help them and be able to avail of advanced training.

Overhaul the Ministry of Education

Senior personal need to be removed right away and the entire Ministry needs to be restructured.

The team deemed the Ministry a “poorly led and mismatched organisation” which is “secretive”, “paternalistic” and “stifles” progress in education.

The Ministry needs to view schools as their “clients” and educational officers should only be appointed based on merit. The team also recommended that no one receive a contract longer than five years and an interim Executive Board should evaluate the Ministry.

An Executive Board should be created to implement the review

The board would act on behalf of the Ministry and produce a three-year strategic plan which would include these recommendations as well as the Bermuda Education Strategic Team’s recommendations.

The team said the Board of Education could be restored and given more powers to fulfil this role, or a new group could be made.

More delegation, accountability and transparency

Schools should not have to depend on the Ministry for guidance and should be able to implement initiatives themselves. They should have more freedom and take on more responsibilities.

Rigorous standards for key grades, such as Primary 3 and Senior 2, should be established and “authentic testing” should be implemented in these grades. An annual school review should also be implemented.

Raise school leaving age and created a senior school federation

They recommended that students be required to stay in school until they 18 and more vocational education was needed.

A senior school federation would see the Board delegate a lot of responsibility to an executive principal.

The curriculum would also have to be stream lined so that all schools taught the same topics which led directly into what was being taught at the Bermuda College.

Create a federation for each primary and middle school partnership

This recommendation aimed to deal with the problems brought on by the education restructure which took place in 1997.

It included creating a Board which would oversee a primary school and the middle school it feeds into. They would have some power in hiring and firing as well as the allocation of resources.

The curriculum would also be streamlined to ensure the transition was seamless.

Tweak the curriculum

This recommendation outlined the need to ensure students could move from one grade to another, and progress through the system, having learnt the same curriculum no matter what school they attended.

The curriculum of key grades also needed to be sharpened and standards and assessments improved.

Address behavioural and learning difficulties

Students with learning disabilities should be catered to within the class instead of being sent to special classes.

More attention needs to be paid to getting assistance for primary school students exhibiting behavioural problems.

Make it a community effort

The boards which would run the federations and schools should be filled by elections so that there is more direct involvement from the community.

The ten point plan to improve our schools