Frustrated trade unionists have written to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) asking it to intervene with Government to ensure they are consulted on the overhaul of the public education system.

Anthony Wolffe, president of Bermuda Trades Union Congress (TUC), told a parliamentary committee yesterday that the letter to the ILO — the Geneva-based UN agency which works to bring together governments, employers and workers — was a last resort after repeated requests to the Ministry of Education for more involvement were ignored.

The Joint Select Committee on Education — tasked with reviewing and reporting on how the ten recommendations in last year's Hopkins Report on public schools are being implemented — also heard yesterday that a British group called ISOS have been recruited as consultants on the education reform.

Ed Ball, general secretary of the Bermuda Public Services Union (BPSU), said the group was recommended by David Hopkins, the professor behind the report, to "look at providing consultation services to the Bermuda Government for the next five years".

A separate team of consultants has already conducted a curriculum audit and yesterday's meeting heard that another British consultant, Peter Matthews, has also been involved in meetings with stakeholders. Mr. Wolffe, Mr. Ball and the TUC's immediate past president Maynard Dill all gave presentations to the cross-party committee expressing concern about the lack of local consultation and the recruiting of more foreign consultants.

Mr. Wolffe said: "It's the opinion of the Congress that if the unions were involved from the beginning then we wouldn't need to have these new consultants.

"They are, in fact, educators, and we have educators right here. We have 900 consultants within the public school system."

The union leaders questioned the role of Henry Johnson, who was brought in from the US last year as consultant executive officer to lead the reform and has now also been given the role of acting commissioner of education.

BPSU president Armell Thomas asked why Dr. Johnson was able to get the job of commissioner without leaving the Island and applying for it, as any other expatriate working here would have had to do.

Mr. Dill said Dr. Johnson seemed to have a "very adverse attitude" when it came to hearing what principals had to say. "It's either his way or the highway and we believe that now appointing him acting commissioner is a step in the wrong direction," he said.

With reference to the letter to the ILO, Mr. Wolffe said: "We have been so frustrated with our requests for involvement in education reform simply going by the wayside.

"We felt we had no choice but to draft a letter which would be sent to the ILO.

"Please understand that we were at such a level of frustration that we thought it necessary to write to the ILO with the hope that they would intervene to ensure that stakeholder members on the congress are involved in educational reform."

He said after the meeting he expected the letter, sent in August, to be considered by a committee of the ILO in November.

Mr. Ball told the committee that the education reform had been conducted so far without "meaningful consultation" with the unions, including the BPSU, Bermuda Union of Teachers and the Association of School Principals.

And he said Ministry of Education officials, whom his union represents, were as much in the dark as everyone else about plans for changes in schools.

Mr. Ball questioned why new jobs created in the Ministry of Education were not advertised for and appointed at the same time so that "you bring a team in".

Two directors have been named, with a third still to be appointed. Mr. Ball said: "Unfortunately, it gives the impression once again of a haphazard broken bottle affair".