do more to boost the numbers of local youths entering the tourism industry.

But pointing to a range of programmes in schools, he denied Government was paying mere "lip service'' to the problem.

Mr. Simons was responding to comments made by Prof. Donald Hawkins, visiting tourism scholar at the Bermuda College, who says the Island is at a crossroads and has to tackle the problem of "unfavourable community attitudes'' to service in tourism. "The human resource dimension is often recognised in a lip service manner,'' he said on Thursday.

Mr. Simons said the topic of tourism was taught to secondary school pupils at the moment as part of three subjects -- history, geography and civics. Under school re-structuring this would continue. But in addition, middle-school children would touch on some of the service areas of tourism as part of technical and life-skills lessons.

Also, senior secondary level pupils would have the option of taking specific craft courses related to tourism, Mr. Simons said. "That will be a significant improvement over what we are doing at the moment. These pupils will make very good general apprentices -- they will have some understanding of the crafts required before they enter a hotel.'' The Ministry is also hoping to strengthen training and the careers side of education, he added.

"I believe we're doing more than just paying lip service even now, but we do need to do more.'' In a stark illustration of the problem of attracting youth into tourism last week, only about 16 of the 209 Bermuda College students taking part in the 1992 commencement ceremony were products of the college's hotel school.

Mr. Michael Conlin, dean of the hotel and business administration faculty, said the low proportion of tourism students was fairly typical of recent years.

"Overall, applications for enrolment in our hospitality programmes have not changed dramatically from last year. The numbers have held pretty constant for the last decade. Generally speaking the number of graduates from hospitality programmes has been fairly small.

"Bermuda presents Bermudians with an incredibly rich array of career opportunities and the means to attain them. Students and their parents are opting for the `high prestige' occupations -- they don't talk to us about money, they talk to us about prestige.

"There are countries in the world where working in the hospitality industry is considered extremely prestigious. If we can imbue that level of status into our own industry we'll be better off.'' But Mr. Conlin highlighted areas where he thinks progress is being made. "We have several initiatives under way which we hope will turn around the traditional reluctance of Bermudians to come into the hospitality industry as seen in the last decade,'' he said.

The college's careers exposition last year, which fourth and fifth year secondary pupils attended voluntarily, had produced results. About 85 had attended, meeting faculty members and hotel representatives, and 16 had applied to hospitality programmes. That was an improvement on past years, when students visited on a day-release basis which was often compulsory.

"We're holding out some hope that will generate more interest. And we're going to do a similar thing once or twice in this upcoming school year.'' The college was also working with the Bermuda Hotel Association to develop a tourism awareness programme in which representatives of the industry would visit high schools and attempt to reach parents.

"Also, we're now moving towards our own degree programmes, and the first one would be a Bachelor of Business Administration. This would provide an opportunity for concentration in tourism and hospitality management.

"It will elevate the status of working in the industry and give it a more professional image.''