Barbara Harries Hunter Author of `Beyond The Crossroads' It seems to me a great pity that the full weight of public opposition to the restructuring of our children's education has come so late in the day.

Restructure has already caused one dreadfully harmful move: the loss of Warwick Academy to the private system. This enlargement of the private sector can only deepen the divisions in our society between rich and poor, middle class and working class, and so, to some extent, between white and black.

Bermudian businesses may soon find they have more uncomfortable personnel difficulties because of the different educational attainments of would-be staff members.

It does not seem very likely that the present outcry will cause Government to re-think the "mega-school''. Things have gone too far for that. They will obviously stick also to the shift to middle schools. (My friends in education, here, in Canada, and in the US, feel the middle schools do indeed have great advantages.) The only way that Government can avoid the damage we all fear may result from the changes, is to ensure that its schools are so good that a reasonable number of their children can compete at the college and business level with the graduates of the private schools. This is unlikely to result from a philosophy of comprehensive education which is the antithesis of the schooling provided by the private sector. I am convinced we should be following the example of many school districts in Canada and the US in moving to the "Magnet School'' principle. I remember a time when Dr. Marion Robinson was interested in this idea. What a pity it was not followed up.

A Magnet School is one which follows a core curriculum of the standard school subjects, but which also develops one or more areas of specialisation to a greater degree than do other schools, giving the students a special pride in their studies which will do much to hold the interest of those who might otherwise become truants or trouble-makers, by developing their special talents. This philosophy is now being adopted in the schools of Durham, North Carolina. Durham is making these changes in order to combat the problems of juvenile delinquency, including drugs, which threatens to destroy the amalgamation of the largely black, working class, Durham City schools, with the mainly middle class, racially mixed, Durham County school system. It was also found necessary to make the change in order not to lose more of those parents can afford the private schools, and so start another round of social segregation.

Durham has just completed its application process for the first year of the new system. The Durham Magnet Centre (the old Durham High School) has a programme which has proved so attractive to the families of the area that instead of an enrolment which has been only one percent white, 30 percent of its students will be now be white. This shows that it has attracted a large proportion of the students from the county back to the inner city. We could not, of course, expect anything like such a result, since there is a far higher proportion of white children available in the combined Durham system than we now have in the public system here, but it does indicate that it is possible to achieve better integration than we now expect.

Durham Magnet Centre offers three specialised themes: Technical Subjects, Fine and Performing Arts, and Global Studies. I feel that the presently planned school system in Bermuda will ask each student to cover so many subjects that the timetables will not have room for the immersion in a group of related subjects required by the magnet system.

I suggest that there is still time for Bermuda to consider how this concept can be applied to our projected senior schools, while giving the middle school staffs the freedom to adapt their methods to preparing their children and the parents to make sensible choices.

My own suggestion would be to change The Berkeley Institute very little from the highly-respected school which has served Bermuda so well -- although making sure that its liberal arts, science and commerce facilities are as good as any on the Island, but making no attempt to give it any "Tech'' function.

This would correspond somewhat to the Global Studies magnet being developed in Durham, which includes social studies and languages. The new school at Prospect could then have two autonomous departments, one of which would be a new "Tech''. This is our chance, perhaps our last chance, to replace the greatly loved and respected Bermuda Technical Institute, which provided ownership and staffing for so many Bermuda businesses. Such a school would not be thought inferior to Berkeley -- the community is longing for it. May I remind the reader that "Tech'' always had a number of white children when even Berkeley had none? The other major department at Prospect could be devoted to Fine and Performing Arts. There is tremendous talent in Bermuda. If it could be harnessed at this stage of our students' lives, we would find, as is being found in many places in the US and Canada, that far fewer of them would "fall through the cracks''. They would be eager to attend school and their core subjects could be tailored to fit -- more art, music and drama with the history and English, for example.

I think the schools would have to be prepared for students to switch magnets if they find the wrong choice has been made, especially after the first or second year. Under such a flexible system they might also find certain students transferring from the private schools.

One other step must be considered -- personally I consider it vital: whatever external examinations are taken by the private schools, those exams should also be available to at least some of the government school students, and all "Tech'' students who are able to should follow the external syllabus and examinations most appropriate for each craft. A scheme like this would ensure that Bermuda College had students with a better foundation and attitude to work than some have today and that those who need to leave school at 16 or 17 would be better prepared for immediate entry into the work-force. Some magnet schools in Canada require a selection process for entry; the Durham schools, however, will not be using a selected entry, except for the brilliant students who attend the 20-year-old, two-year North Carolina School for Science and Maths. The function of this school and others like it is better assumed by Bermuda College.

The reader may think I am a visionary. So I am, but not an impractical one. I have kept up with developments overseas since I retired as a teacher. I know that school systems in North America have been switching to a variety of magnet school structures over the last 15 or more years to combat the very problems we are facing here. In general they are keeping to the large high schools that have been their pattern, but relying on concentrations of the students' preferred topics to combat the disenchantment that makes for trouble. We are sadly out of date. No-one is going to make the sort of changes suggested here on my say-so, of course, but perhaps the current outcry produced enough desperate politicians that they will at least give it some thought, and realise they do not have to be stuck with a government school system which the public obviously dislikes and distrusts.