Probably politics. The Ministry of Education, which has the largest Government budget in Bermuda, is doubtless frightened of the reaction of teachers if they are asked to work the same hours most people work. The Government probably thinks, as it usually does, that it would be unwise to move because a few votes might be involved.

This is not to pick on teachers, it is to present a problem. Our children are on the streets because school is out when parents are at work. School hours do not mesh with today's working hours or with today's need for working parents.

Teaching is no easy job but most other people do sometimes dream of Christmas and spring and long summer holidays. Those school hours were arranged for 19th Century rural living with farm animals to feed and crops to harvest.

Schools are let out, not because of the children, but because of ancient usage which we have not bothered to change. Sometimes we are told that the students can only take so many hours of school, yet the experience in other countries, notably Japan and Germany, demonstrates that students are quite capable of using more school time. It may be that the relaxed year we use today and which causes such problems for parents also short-changes our children. We should be asking if they are getting enough education or the appropriate education in an age of technology.

We build jails and we worry about teenage pregnancy and drug and alcohol use and yet we let our young people out of school and onto the streets where they are most at risk. Something is backwards here. The streets are a breeding ground for juvenile crime, teenage pregnancy and drug use. Young people out of school and out of the home with nothing to do face great temptations to go astray yet we go on exposing them to the temptations. This is not a parent problen or a teacher problem but it is a problem which we can take steps toward solving. School is better than jail.

Edward Zeigler of Yale University has designed a year-round and all-day school of the 21st Century which is now operating in a number of sites. He has said: "It's what grandma always told us. If you leave kids to take care of themselves on the streets they'll get in trouble.'' President Clinton has said that "the street is not an acceptable alternative to the classroom''.

Yet we continue to cater to 19th Century parents by locking the classrooms early and often, forgetting that in 1996 parents are at work and not home on the farm.

Is Bermuda looking at the Edward Zeigler model? Probably not. We are still struggling to inflict an outmoded Canadian secondary school system on our children.