Education Minister Randy Horton delivered a rousing speech on the state of the public school system in the House of Assembly yesterday, admitting that the task of addressing its challenges was a “daunting” one.

Mr. Horton, in a lengthy presentation littered with literary and philosophical quotes, called on the “decision makers in this country” to back the Government’s commitment to improving public education, which he described as “somewhat in crisis”.

The passion of his words was later praised by his Opposition counterpart Neville Darrell <$>— but the Shadow Education Minister, in an equally animated and heavyweight response, pointed out that the Progressive Labour Party was into its 100th month in power yet was only just beginning to tackle the crisis which last year saw fewer than half of the students at the two senior schools graduate.

Mr. Horton’s speech focused on the $117 milllion allocated to the Department of Education in the budget for the coming year for the Island’s 38 public schools.

He said the cash — part of the Ministry of Education’s $152 million budget — was needed to “provide the opportunities that we feel are necessary for our young people to grow and become worthy and productive citizens in our community”.

But he said the money alone was no guarantee of success.

“There is much that needs to be done to make the situation better. I’m here to challenge politicians, principals, teachers, parents, community leaders, businessmen, to step up to the plate and hit the home run that our young people deservedly need,” he said.

“Our challenges are many and we need the support of everyone if the successes of our students in Bermuda are to be realised. We can no longer allow our children to bear the brunt of political division.”

He added: “We have the responsibility to set the example for these young people. As leaders we must raise the level of our expectations. These young people reach great heights when we ask them to, when we challenge them to. We as leaders must set the standards.”

The Government launched a review of the education system last month and Mr. Horton, a former head teacher, said overseas and local experts had been tasked with providing recommendations on how to raise standards of achievement.

He said: “We want schools where teachers teach. We want schools where students learn and where discipline is enforced. When we have schools like that we won’t, at the end of 12 years of schooling, have half of the students failing.”

Mr. Horton went through the budget line by line, eventually finishing his presentation after three and three-quarter hours. Seven hours in total are allotted for the budget debate on public schools.

Mr. Darrell, finally getting to his feet just after 4 p.m., said he had thoroughly enjoyed the speech and its references to Sir William Osler, Napoleon Hill, Mother Teresa and Socrates.

But he said the quote from American author Hill — “It’s not what you are going to do, it’s what you are doing now” — was almost a repudiation of the Government’s own position.

“I don’t know if the Minister saw the pathos in that statement,” he said.

“To my mind comes the response of James Baldwin: ‘Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.’”

He added: “It has taken 100 months for this Government to come to the conclusion that we have a crisis in public education.”

He said Mr. Horton’s speech showed that both sides of the House were on the same page. But he added: “We were on that page a lot of years ago. We have been saying for a lot of years we need a different approach to public education.”

Mr. Darrell claimed that $600 million had been spent on public education since 2002 — an amount he characterised as $100,000 paid by every man, woman and child on the Island.

And he criticised the PLP for having had six Education Ministers since coming to power. “Every leader reserves the right to have his or her own vision. It can be very disruptive within education. With the leadership being so skewed, the vision was equally skewed.”

Mr. Darrell then went on to suggest there may need to be another level of accountability for education, which would be an elected position separate from the Ministry and would change leader every five years therefore providing some continuity.

The lack of vision and continuity, he seemed to imply, resulted in the disturbing results on reading, writing and language for primary, middle and senior school students, which, almost across the board have fallen since the 2002-2003 education year.

However, Mr. Darrell said he did not want to imply that it was entirely the PLP’s fault because when they came into power the pattern was in place, but the alarm bell should have gone off and the review process should have started earlier.

The majority of the comments by Mr. Darrell and former Education Minister and PLP MP>Terry Lister focused on the need to keep students in the schools and the system seemed to lose students around the middles chool years.

Mr. Darrell discussed recruitment of male teachers, saying that in 2006-2007 only 18 percent of teachers are male, and because young men fail more often then our women and he said the teachers would give them men role models and examples to follow.

Both men spoke about the need for parents to be involved in the schools, but also for them to feel like they are stakeholders in the schools, where their voices will be heard.

But Mr. Lister said parental involvement started when their children are only two years old and should be evaluated so if there are learning issues then the children have a head start on programmes to help them before starting school.

The school system must also take a holistic approach to teaching the children once they are involved, so problems at home which may effect a child’s behaviour are understood and children are not just thrown out of classrooms.

But he felt the main reason Bermuda lost its middle school children, was because they were not tested on a national level until they reached senior school and just as the students feel they have passed middle school they are presented with failing grades.

Grant Gibbo<$>(UBP) expressed his dismay of only having 45 minutes of a seven-hour debate of education for interplay and dismissed the idea of implementing local standard testing.

Bermuda is competing on an international level and therefore Bermuda needs to be testing and reaching these international standards, he said.

What taxpayers should be concerned about, he said, is the “value for money” they are not getting from the Ministry of Education, which has allocated $19,000 per student in the public system.

Mr. Gibbons said: “That means a lot of money. When 50 percent are failing that means we’re not getting value for money.”

Mr. Gibbons echoed Mr. Darrel’s call for a quango that is separate from the Ministry that would also be able to license teachers, which he felt was long overdue.

He also felt it may help improve the trust between the Ministry and the heads of the school because the money is there and something is not working.