Government immigration policies could spell "the death knell'' for top private schools like Bermuda High School for Girls, the outgoing headmaster said yesterday.

"We've got to be able to fight for the best possible staff that we can get,'' Mr. John (Jack) Wright told The Royal Gazette .

"We can not be directed by Government to tell us who will teach.

"When they write and say, `You must take so and so,' and they name the actual person that I've got to hire, if that is allowed to continue, that is the death knell of a good school.'' Mr. Wright said Government directives on who to hire had increased during his five-year tenure at the all-girls' school.

Bermuda High, which is celebrating its centennial, has made great strides in Bermudianising its staff, he said. All primary teachers in years one through six are Bermudian. And the school's standards had not been lowered in achieving that.

But specialists in a school using the British teaching system had to possess certain credentials, he said. And it was up to private schools, not Government, to specify what those credentials should be.

Mr. Wright said Bermuda High had been fighting Government on its work permit policies, and the fight would have to continue under his successor, Mrs.

Eleanor Kingsbury.

Mr. Wright, 65, is retiring with his wife Win to his home state of Alabama.

But first, he will spend most of the next year as a consultant at St. James Episcopal School in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he will help search for a new principal.

Asked what he felt Bermuda High had accomplished in the last five years, Mr.

Wright said it had taken steps to remove the school's "lily white'' image.

"It's been five years of broadening the scope of the school, really, to make it a more visible and active part of the community,'' he said.

Counselling services had been improved, as had physical education. Bermuda High was now the only school in Bermuda that offered British exams in art, music and drama. Meanwhile, Bermuda High students achieved their best-ever results in the traditional British exams last year.

Among other achievements, Bermuda High had completed its building campaign, freed the school of debt, and expanded enrolment by 80 students to more than 600 -- the highest ever.

While strapped for space on its Richmond Road site, Bermuda High had to look at further expansion, Mr. Wright said.

"Seeing that the growth of the school is such a natural growth ... I think the school has got to look at its obligations to the community.

By "natural growth'', he said climbing enrolment was mainly due to girls staying at Bermuda High longer, rather than girls transferring there from other schools.

"If the community wants an all-girls' school to the extent that it's saying that it does now, then I think we've got to provide the space and facilities to do the best job we can with the girls,'' he said.

A consultant and a broadly-based committee are about to develop a strategic plan for the school.

It will deal not only with expansion, but whether the school should stick with the British education system, and whether it should grow to offer British A level exams, he said.

But it is "a given'' that Bermuda High will remain an all-girls' school, because girls learned better in a single-sex environment, he said.

Mr. John (Jack) Wright