April 11, 2007

A copy of this letter was sent to the Education Review Team.

Dear Sir,

I am an educator who started teaching in the Bermuda Education system nearly 20 years ago after attending public education school sat both the primary and secondary levels. I find it interesting that some of us often try to determine what is wrong with our current system by comparing it to the “wonderful” system that we used to have. However, an honest look will reveal that our previous education system was not the panacea that many would like us to believe. In fact, we used to say to boys and girls at 11-years-old, that they were not intelligent enough to attend the two academic schools and therefore had to be satisfied with their “second or third choice” general schools. If you speak with many of the adults today that attended one of the great general secondary schools, you can often still hear the bitterness.

Although I was “lucky” enough to attend one of the academic schools, it still amazed me how these schools had the nerve to boast how successful they were, when in fact they could select who could and who could not enter their hallowed halls.

Nowadays, it is the rest of us who often marvel at how “good” the private schools are when compared to the public schools. Our own Minister of Education provides public school graduation rates which, if the same data collection methods were applied to the private schools, would be quite comparable. It would be very interesting if all the private schools indicated exactly how many of the students that started there in Year 7 actually finished and graduated at the end of their final year.

Although that is not to excuse the low rate of students who are leaving the public school with a graduating certificate, one must be fair and realise that of the 200 or so students that enter a public high school in S1, many of those students transfer to other schools or go overseas to enter an alternative programme. Likewise, many students who enter private schools or home schools and then transfer to Berkeley Institute or CedarBridge Academy or are sent overseas by their parents. The major difference is that Berkeley Institute and CedarBridge Academy cannot say to those students “you cannot come here if your parents are poor or on drugs or can’t care for you, or because you didn’t receive a certain grade on your “IQ” (entrance) exam.”

But, I digress. I believe the main problem with our previous system was the 11-plus exam. All we needed to modify was how to transfer our young people from primary school to high school without making young people feel like they were not good enough, and to ensure that every student on this island received a quality education.

We needed to ensure that students at all nine of the high schools of the time offered the quality education that was “perceived” to be offered at the old Berkeley Institute and Warwick Academy. This could have been easily accomplished with a system that offered quality vocational education, quality technical education, quality alternative education as well as a quality traditional education. If our young people were given the choice to attend any of the institutions all offering a variety of quality education, our system would have taken a drastic turn.

Unfortunately, we decided to try to accomplish that by adopting a North American style of middle school education that itself was considered to be failing and proceeded to offer a “one size fits all” programme in an overwhelming large setting that very many children are very unhappy in, both socially and academically.

However, in the interest of being helpful and not just critical, I will try to offer a few solutions to our current dilemma (both of which could be adapted to provide the best education for all):

Option A

1. Abolish the middle school system. It has not worked and has produced graduates who are less prepared academically and much less mature.

2. Leave the primary schools alone.

3. Have the current middle schools offer the GCSE curriculum (which is applicable for all levels of students) as well as other internationally recognised certifications. We are an island in a physical sense only and our students must compete on the worldwide stage. I must add here, though, that our current BSC curriculum has been deemed comparable in quality to other jurisdictions.

4. Allow the “three” senior high school schools to specialise in their offerings. As an example: a. Technical High school, b. High School of Business and Technology, c. High School for Arts and Sciences etc.

5. Offer Advanced Placement, A levels, IB and advanced technical certification at the senior school level.

6. Finally, address the fact that many of our parents are working two and three jobs just to make ends meet and many public school students are left to fend for themselves with all that that entails. Therefore, mandatory after-school care will need to be added.

Option B:

1. Convert the existing Clearwater and Sandy’s Middle Schools back into High Schools.

2. Allow the 4 high schools to specialise: a. Business, b. Arts and Science, c. Performing Arts d. Technical etc.

3. Convert Spice Valley Middle School into a true Alternative School.

4. Leave the primary schools as they are or add additional years to offer the GSCE curriculum by incorporating Dellwood and Whitney Institute Middle Schools.

5. as No. 5 above.

Thank you for allowing me to contribute my thoughts>

A CONCERNED EDUCATOR

Devonshire