School officials yesterday threw their support behind the Bermuda College's decision to lower admission requirements for some students.

The college earlier this week announced that it planned to introduce a list of changes in September.

This will include accepting students with a Grade Point Average of 1.5 during the last two years of high school into certificate programmes.

Previously the college required students to have at least a 2.0 out of 4.0 with "satisfactory'' standing in level five traditional English and Mathematics.

The college's new Vice President for Student and Academic Affairs said he believed a comprehensive approach to teaching less academic students at the college will help them may up any deficiencies.

And yesterday Education Minister Jerome Dill agreed.

"We really have to cater to a wide ranger of people at the college,'' he said.

Mr. Dill explained that the college was not lowering its standards because the 1.5 GPA entry requirement only applied to some certificate programmes and all other eligibility requirements remained. The college also increased the minimum GPA for graduating from 1.5 to 2.0, bringing it in line with most overseas colleges.

"What is changing is the flexibility and latitude that students have,'' he said. "It gives us more flexibility to catch some people who are falling through the cracks.'' He added that the college was there to serve the "greatest number of Bermudians'' that it can.

Ernest Payette, principal of CedarBridge Academy which will aim to prepare students for tertiary education or to immediately enter the workforce, said he believed what the college was trying to do was a "very appropriate intervention strategy'' which will meet needs of students for the next three years.

CedarBridge also planned to offer courses which will assist students looking at a variety of careers, he pointed out.

"We have to set the exit requirements based on the exit destination,'' he explained. "For example, the exit requirements for a student going away to medical school will be totally different from a student interested in entering the workforce.'' But Mr. Payette noted that in order to receive accreditation, the school needed to set standards which were comparable to the US, Canada, and the UK.

And he disclosed that staff at the senior secondary school and the college planned to meet within the next two weeks to discuss a long-term approach to meeting the needs of students.

Noting that the college was only lowering the entrance requirements for some certificate programmes, former college president Archibald Hallett said: "It's probably a move in the right direction. It does not affect the graduation standards.'' However, Dr. Hallett pointed out that the need to lower the admission level for some students indicated flaws in the public school system.

"The tragedy is that the school system is not able to bring students up to scratch,'' he said.

"But we live in hope that the new CedarBridge will help in this regard.'' BERMUDA COLLEGE EDC