done by.

We have certainly been among the complainers about education in Bermuda but we do think that the situation is changing. The current concerns have a rather obvious cause. Whenever a country decides to overhaul and almost totally change its system of education there is going to be a period when both parents and students are uncertain about the system. That comes about largely because they are the ones who suffer. They live through the difficulties of change.

But that does not mean that the system being implemented is bereft of long-term benefits.

In many countries today people know that education in general went through a long period when students were pampered in schools rather than taught.

Misguided social thinkers led educators to believe that a child's self-esteem was more important than education. It was fashionable and far easier to promote unschooled children through the system rather than hold them back and drill them.

Since baby sitting was easier than actual teaching, many educators fell for the deception and thus we have children who passed through the system without learning much or passing anything. The same philosophy led educators to believe that ever child was due an academic education and Bermuda and other places abandoned technical schools. What happened was that a quite large number were discouraged because they could not keep up academically in class and dropped out to become wall sitters when they would have made perfectly capable and well paid mechanics, carpenters and plumbers. To cover the fact that young men were failing and "falling through the cracks'' we were all then told that they faced unfair and discouraging competition from young women who mature earlier.

Bermuda is not alone in these mistakes and is beginning to learn that the philosophy which led us to toward failure was no valid philosophy at all and a disaster for education. It is unfortunate that Bermuda and education authorities did not have the ability to stand up on their own and say that baby sitting was not good enough for Bermuda's children. To be fair, a few people did that to their great credit. They knew that children had to have a regard for authority and a willingness to learn before anything constructive could happen. We think CedarBridge is on the road to discipline coupled with counselling and personal academic attention.

We see signs that the public schools in Bermuda are beginning to learn that without discipline in the classrooms no-one learns. There is an effort to return to respect for authority, for school property and for other students.

That's what the CADET scheme at Warwick Camp is about. It is very early days yet, but it may be that the old philosophy is passing and that we are on our way back to basics.