Shadow Education Minister Grant Gibbons has questioned why the number of teachers in the public education system has increased but students numbers have decreased.

Dr. Gibbons said the number of students has dropped every year since 2003, especially in the middle and senior school levels.

He submitted parliamentary questions to Education Minister El James asking for the total numbers of teachers employed from 2006/07 to 2009/10, the total numbers of para-educators, learning support teachers and guidance counselors from 2008/09 to 2009/10 and the total number of students for 2008/09 to 2009/10.

"What the answers to these and earlier parliamentary questions show is that the number of students within the public system continues to decline and has dropped every year since 2003. We are now approaching almost a thousand fewer students in the public system than in 2003," he said.

"People are voting with their feet. The answers also show that the decline in students has been significantly more pronounced in the middle and senior levels.

He continued: "At the same time, the number of teachers, as defined in the Government budget books, including learning support teachers, paraprofessionals and guidance counsellors, has consistently increased.

"In the period, 2003-2009, the number of teachers has increased by more than 100, while the number of students has significantly declined."

Dr. Gibbons also explained the current student to teacher ratio.

"Currently the student teacher ratio is about 6:1— a factor of three to four times better than what is seen in other countries with superior public educations systems like Canada, UK, Singapore where the ratios are somewhere between 18:1 to 25:1, ratios which are closer to what's seen in private schools in Bermuda.

"Unfortunately and counter intuitively, these extraordinarily rich student teacher ratios in Bermuda's public system have not translated into a higher quality of teaching or student performance as clearly noted by Professor Hopkins, whose primary recommendation was to 'dramatically increase the quality of teaching' as part of his plan for public education reform."

Dr. Gibbons said the budget for education this year was $128.4 million which works out to a cost of $23,000 per student and less than $80 per teacher for training.

Asked why the need to ask the questions, he said: "The simple answer is because this type of basic information is not readily available and frankly it should be if the Education Ministry was being open and transparent.

"But more fundamentally, the answers to these parliamentary questions help us to keep track of trends and direction within the public education system in order to understand whether it's being managed effectively by the Government, whether students are being properly educated and whether parents, and the community are getting good value for their tax dollars.

"In the last few weeks and months we are seeing graphically and first-hand, some of the consequences of a public education system that is failing our students."

Education Minister El James did not respond by press time.