tackle the illiteracy problem.

A recent article in The Financial Times reported on two voluntary reading programmes aimed at turning around that city's low literacy rates -- and cutting crime at the same time.

Washington DC may be a very different place from Bermuda, but it faces some of the same challenges. Like Bermuda -- at least according to recent test results -- poor literacy is a relatively minor problem in primary schools, but a serious one by the time students leave high school.

Studies show that the majority of people caught committing crimes struggle with literacy. To be sure, poverty contributes as well, but improved literacy can be the "hand-up'' which helps people to take the first step out of poverty -- and away from crime.

In Washington DC, 46 percent of students in the 11th grade were reading "below basic'' compared to 12 percent of first graders. Bermuda may not be as badly off as that, but ten years ago, Bermuda was not as badly off as it is now.

Volunteer reading teacher Alicia Montgomery says: "The idea is that if you pass a child who has not mastered a certain skill, the child is going to get passed up and will understand progressively less of what was being taught.'' That idea is stunningly simple, yet educators around the world, concerned with students' social adaption and "self-esteem'' insist on promoting students, regardless of their grades. Now, at least, Education Minister Sen. Milton Scott is beginning to put a stop to that practice.

But holding back students is only part of the answer. Volunteers in Washington DC have also taken matters into their own hands, according to the Financial Times.

Reading schemes -- held either every evening in the summer, or every weekend in the school year -- see volunteers holding one-on-one reading sessions with students.

Marcio Duffles, who began a reading scheme called Start (Summer Reading Time and Reading Together), says the results have been dramatic and his scheme is now in 15 neighbourhoods and involves 300 students. In some cases, students who were failing school and had no direction end up in college.

"When you cut through it, all they are looking for is attention. They are craving someone to say `you are all right','' he said. "That is really what motivates everyone, that pat on the back.'' Whether this community agrees with the actions that the Bermuda Union of Teachers took last week in going on strike, the fact is that education does not begin at 8.30 a.m. and end at 3.30 p.m. Learning and teaching go on all day and all night.

Bermuda, which faces problems which are neither as severe nor as intractable as Washington DC, could save a generation of students if someone in every neighbourhood began schemes like Start.

It would take a few hundred adults a few hours a week to make a meaningful change in the lives of thousands of at-risk students. It is easy to blame the teachers, the Ministry of Education, parents or the previous or current Governments for the problems facing the schools.

But the solution begins with the whole community. And if Washington DC can recognise that and begin to start again, then Bermuda can too.