Recognising that race plays a role in the education system is the first step we can take to address the problem, an overseas expert said.

More than 100 people packed the North Hall Bermuda College theatre on Friday night for the third panel discussion of the Bermuda Race Relations Initiative (BRRI).

University of Pennsylvania professor and child psychology specialist Dr. Margaret Spencer touched upon a number of "Euro centrist" challenges black children face.

The series of forums, which started in March, is the brainchild of Premier Ewart Brown and is supported by the Cabinet Office, with Rolfe Commissiong, consultant to the Premier, as its main organiser.

BRRI co-facilitators Americans Dr. Bernestine Singley and Professor Robert Jensen introduced the audience to each speaker, which included a Bermudian panel of three.

Although dubbed as a productive assembly by the majority of those in attendance, it was not without its heated but civil bouts of exchanges.

Community activist Dr. Eva Hodgson was also present, to help moderate discussions. Dr. Hodgson told of when she first returned to the Island in the 1980s, there were no programmers in schools that taught African history.

Furthermore, Dr. Hodgson said that education officials at the time showed little interest in her attempts to incorporate African studies into the curriculum, which already had "many European ones".

Colwyn (Junior) Burchall, 33, a teacher of the African-centred Ashay: Rites of Passage curriculum, was one of the Bermudian panellists who took part in the discussion on race in education.

At one point, he gave a run down of how the programme works, what is learned and the progress the Island's education system has made, in the context of black history, since he went to primary school.

Mr. Commissiong said: "We are continuing to build from strength to strength and I'm also pleased by the attendance by the Shadow Minister of Education, Dr. Grant Gibbons and the Opposition whip John Barritt.

"I think it's very important that the Opposition support the goals of the BRRI to truly advance the goal of making this a bipartisan approach to the issue of race relations."

Opposition whip Mr. Barritt stressed that his attendance was non-political. "I thought it was a very good dialogue because education isn't just a topical issue," he said. "It's a very real issue in Bermuda today and people, particularly parents, want to know how we can fix it, in terms of how we can produce students who can fill the jobs that this economy is generating, without regard to race or gender.

"And anything that gets to the bottom of that is good and unfortunately, at the end of the discussion we were just starting to get to it, when we started to hear from some of the teachers and the real challenges that they have in the classroom.

"This kind of dialogue in the context of education is a very important one to have."