Education Minister put on a brave face yesterday as he revealed the contents of a "very frank'' report on the public school system.

The unprecedented audit, carried out by a team led by associate professor of educational administration at Iowa State University William Poston, pointto a slew of deficiencies in the system.

Among the team's findings were: System-wide planning was "fragmented and inordinate''; The Ministry's policy was inadequate to ensure quality curriculum control; Staff development was "uncoordinated and unfocused on measured teacher needs; Student performance measures were mixed and tended to decline over time; Key personnel had little involvement in budgeting; School facilities were "inequitable in adequacy, maintenance, and accessibility''; and, The role of the Board of Education was unclear.

The audit team, which listed its 15 recommendations in order of priority, stated that the Ministry first needed to put a comprehensive public and staff participatory process in place.

"We recommended a comprehensive public and staff process for participation because we found that the major stakeholders did not have much input,'' Mr.

Poston told The Royal Gazette , which revealed the major recommendations earlier this month.

"For example,'' he said, "the Board of Education told us they felt their role was confusing. They really did not feel like they were making substantive con- tributions. They felt that their input was not being valued.'' Other recommendations were: Consolidate the Ministry on one central site and effect changes in assignments for improved service and greater cost-efficiency; Restructure roles and responsibilities of administrative personnel to ensure sound and effective organisational practices; Design and implement a comprehensive curriculum management system; Continue with the implementation of long-range planning for continual improvement and organisational focus including needs diagnosis, facilities, finance, technology, assessment of performance, and curriculum; Establish and implement a comprehensive, multi-dimensional system assessment programme to provide meaningful data for decision-making in student learning, programme evaluation and the improvement of teaching; Direct, develop and implement quality control to assure sound intervention for system improvement; Develop and implement an information management and public relations programme, including hiring a "qualified information specialist''; Organise and staff a division for organisational assessment to provide sound and useful data for organisational decision making; Consolidate pre-school education centres in Government-owned and educationally appropriate space with reasonable access for all children and with uniform instructional quality; Relocate Opportunity Workshop to a health-oriented environment; Design and implement a sound and focused staff-development plan to maximise human resource development and effective curriculum delivery; Schools don't make grade From Page 1 Adopt a four-year plan for implementation of a programme-based budget and allocation system to improve cost-effectiveness and efficiency; Assess the effectiveness and efficiency of all special schools and use results to eliminate inequities in programme delivery and student opportunities; and Prepare and disseminate a written copy of the responsibilities, procedures, and schedules for maintenance and aided schools, maintained schools, and the Ministry's facilities.

"They have produced a very thorough and very frank report,'' Mr. Dill said yesterday. "It points up a number of areas in which there is work to be done.

I am very glad of that.

"The report has given me the realistic view I wanted, the map of the way forward I wanted and the benchmark, the yardstick against which we can measure our progress in the future... "With few exceptions, the Ministry of Education accepts the comments of the audit team as accurate and constructive, just as it accepted the comments of the Education Planning Team and has worked to make improvements in areas which it highlighted.'' Mr. Dill noted that the Premier had appointed an audit committee -- consisting of Ministers for Finance, Works and Engineering, Transport, Youth Development, and Education -- to "prioritise and work through the recommendations''.

Mr. Dill said the committee will play a leading role and he expected that it would meet every two weeks and make quarterly progress reports "The Ministry is uncomfortably aware that the nature of its work and the special interest groups involved in that work have made it seem isolated from principals, teachers, parents and the public in a broad sense...,'' he added. "The Ministry feels strongly that its isolation is much more perceived than real, and that there are many, many more points of agreement between it and these groups than there is points of disagreement.

"In considering how best to proceed as a result of the audit report, the Ministry believes it must again look for specific support from both the education community and from the community in the larger sense.

"Not only will this enable us to move forward more quickly, it will also mitigate against our falling again into the error of seeming to act in isolation from those we seek to serve.'' However, Mr. Dill refused to answer questions on specific findings and he said the Ministry "at a future date'' planned to produce a document outlining the areas in which it disagreed with the audit team's findings.

He also noted that of all the school systems that Dr. Poston had audited, Bermuda ranked in the top 25 percent. And he pointed out that the report focused on the areas that could be improved.

The Minister is scheduled to meet with the National PTA tomorrow to discuss the report.

But neither the Board of Education nor the Bermuda Union of Teachers had received a copy of the report when contacted yesterday.