drawn support from a Canadian educator.

Mr. Mark Holmes, professor of Education and Administration at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, urged students at their prize-giving to save the school from the threat of "outside forces''.

Referring to restructuring plans which will leave Bermuda with five public middle schools and two 700-plus-student senior secondary schools, Prof. Holmes said: "There are many dangers in this world, but one of the most common is the desire of those in power to try and force everyone to fit some mould.'' Warwick Academy, one of the Island's top academic high schools, refused to become a comprehensive school under major education reforms, which are to be fully implemented in September, 1995.

Instead, the school decided to become private by that time. It also began taking in primary students this year.

"Many of the schools in Bermuda, including your own, have developed and grown over time and are a part of the fabric of your society,'' Prof. Holmes told the graduates.

"Your school should not be ripped apart to try and make some brave new world...

"If there are Bermudian schools with severe problems, and I don't know if there are, then they should not destroy the good, the proven, the excellent, in the name of some abstract ideology.'' Prof. Holmes said there was evidence that schools with "a clear sense of purpose were more effective and cost no more'' than large schools.

"Government and planners like big schools which they can run bureaucratically,'' he said. "But most students and parents like small schools where they can feel at home.'' Prof. Holmes said he did an evaluation of 17 New Jersey schools which were trying to improve.

"None of the three large secondary schools in the project improved at all in comparison with other schools not in the project,'' he said. "In fact, they all did worse. This was not because the principals and teachers were bad people...it is just very hard to have a sense of community and belonging in a huge organisation where you don't even recognise all the other members.

"Large schools usually become impersonal bureaucracies where students pursue their own narrow interests without much concern for the school as a whole, without feeling they belong.'' Prof. Holmes added: "...governments should remember that they are the servant of the people in a democracy, not their master. And they often need to be reminded of that.

"So I am asking you to work hard to save your community, your school, but to stop well short of hatred of those other individuals or communities who oppose you.''