Teachers need to do their part to improve public schools? 53 percent graduate, the new president of the Bermuda Union of Teachers said.

New president Lisa Trott said the graduation rates of 53 percent and less was not good enough.

?We can?t survive as a society if we?re graduating only 53 percent of our high school students and one of the challenges facing the union in the upcoming year is identifying what is going wrong and how to fix it,? she said in an exclusive interview with .

A counsellor at Whitney Institute, also said the union will push this year for amendments to the education system?s Code of Conduct to take account of age differences among students.

Ms Trott, a product of Bermuda?s public school system, said the BUT met with representatives from each school recently to discuss the changes needed.

The 37-year-old mother of two said the Code serves as an outline for parents, pupils and teachers as to the ?consequences? of certain types of behaviour.

But she said a standard code was needed to govern the way schools operate and this would be the third attempt by the Union to make this code more user-friendly.

Four years ago, teachers went on strike over discipline problems and the Code of Conduct, she said. ?They say teachers only strike when it?s about money, but the fact of the matter is that we were on strike four years ago because of the code of conduct and teachers were saying that classrooms and pupils were getting out of control and discipline was inconsistent,? she said.

She said certain aspects of the code made it very difficult to administer. For example, the ?penalty? for swearing does not make a distinction between primary, middle or senior schools and there was only one penalty.

?But if a four year old uses the f-word it?s very different to a 16 year old using that word, so those kinds of things are what we are dealing with now,? she said.

Ms Trott also hopes to encourage more men to teach in Bermuda?s public schools.

Of the 900 teachers currently employed by the Department of Education, only about 100 are men and Ms Trott feels as the gender lines come down, more young Bermudian men might consider teaching as a profession.

?It takes a special man to deal with 25 screaming five year olds, but more than that it all comes down to being able to offer an attractive salary,? she said.

Entry-level pay for teachers is now ?somewhere near what we were aiming for? after a 2004 pay negotiation, she said.