A vow by Education Minister Milton Scott to rewrite a policy appearing to ban Opposition MPs from state schools is a U-turn, a Shadow Minister claimed yesterday.

United Bermuda Party Shadow Education Minister Tim Smith said: "The policy was a bit scary and frightening.

"Certainly if the Minister acknowledges the role of Parliamentarians is to educate young people and, provided we keep our comments away from hard-core politics, we should have access to schools as Government members do.'' Mr. Smith spoke out after a document on policy governing politicians' visits to schools was leaked to the press.

The document said the Minister should always be invited to official school functions, while Government MPs could be invited to attend or officiate.

But the policy statement added: "Politicians who are not members of the governing party should not be invited to attend and/or officiate at a function organised by a Government school unless they are invited in their private capacity and because of their skill or knowledge in some particular area..'' The document, however, did make an exception in that "all members of Parliament representing a particular parish may be invited to attend a school function if that invitation is extended to all such persons and the area concerned is considered to be relevant to the school''.

The document also required that all invitations to Opposition MPs must be cleared with the Education Permanent Secretary.

But Sen. Scott insisted that the policy was a restatement of an existing one, intended to "codify'' existing rules and avoid embarrassment over protocol -- and he flatly denied it was intended to slap a ban on Opposition MPs in schools.

And he promised to have the document rewritten to avoid the interpretation that it was exclusionary.

Schools' protocol policy U-turn is a backdown, says Opposition Sen. Scott said the original policy dated back to the last Government -- and insisted that the previous Government, whether formally or informally, had instituted a ban on then-Opposition MPs in schools, particularly in the run-up to the General Election.

But Mr. Smith said he had spoken to ex-Education Minister Jerome Dill, who lost his seat in last year's landslide, who denied knowledge of the document.

Mr. Smith added: "Jerome Dill said it certainly wasn't a directive from him -- and it would have had to have been.'' He said: "I fully respect the protocol that he (Sen. Scott) wishes to continue, which is the same as I think we would have asked for, anyway.

"But many times when I attended school events, my opposite members were present and acknowledged as Members of Parliament or Shadow Ministers.'' He added that he had seen photographs of Opposition MPs in classrooms, and not Government members while he was Minister.

Mr. Smith said: "I respect that freedom of choice -- the freedom of choice and the freedom of expression is something we respect.'' And he added: "The objective should be to encourage proper protocol. The objective then should be to see that all members of the Legislature deserve certain courtesies and respect also.

"We have every confidence that teachers in charge and principals will honour these protocols. They don't need any heavy-handed documents from Ministers saying they can't do things. That's unfair.''