A public education scorecard shows Bermuda’s students falling behind on basic skills, according to the One Bermuda Alliance.

Susan Jackson, the Opposition spokeswoman for education, said that performance measures discussed during the Budget debate in the House of Assembly showed that “we have an entire system of children who are scoring at the 50th percentile or less in reading, writing and arithmetic — and that is most concerning”.

She said that she had debated education for five hours with the minister, Diallo Rabain.

“Whether we have education reform or not, we still have a generation of children who will not immediately or maybe never be a part of the education reform system — that are in school right now and are not achieving scores in writing, reading and arithmetic.”

Ms Jackson said that until more effective teaching was made a priority, the island would see “children graduating out of our public school system without the skills to be in full employment”.

Performance measures published for the Department of Education cover a range of figures, with many discontinued at the senior school level — but showed a revised forecast for 2022-23 of 45 per cent of secondary students achieving their targeted growth in reading, with a target outcome of 50 per cent for 2023-24.

Other figures were higher, with the revised 2022-23 forecast showing 80 per cent gaining college acceptance and 90 per cent passing their City and Guilds assessments in English and maths.

Ms Jackson said she was unaware of whether “we can place any blame anywhere right now” but said she believed that teachers were at low morale.

Ms Jackson added that “the community at large was surprised” by the announced closures of Heron Bay Primary School and Clearwater Middle School. Both are marked for closure this June.

The move was revealed by Mr Rabain this month in the House of Assembly.

Ms Jackson said that more than $4 million had been allocated for education reform in the year ahead.

“The community at large is ready to hear what’s coming with a little more of a road map than we had in the past,” she said.

She spoke after Cole Simons, the Opposition leader, spoke of his concern over the Auditor-General’s office showing that 31 government departments had failed to produce financial statements.

“That’s approximately 113 years of outstanding financial statements,” he said.

Without the reports, Mr Simons said, the public could not reliably track how the Government’s money was being spent.

He questioned why the Human Rights Commission, which was independent of the Government, was under the responsibility of the Minister of Social Development and Seniors.

He said that Tinée Furbert, the minister, had agreed to respond to his concerns.

Mr Simons questioned the lack of movement on parliamentary reforms, saying that a commission had been embodied in 2015 to look into it and “has not delivered”.

He also said that proposed fees for Public Access to Information requests, which are forecast to bring in $50,000 to the Government, had “affronted” Gitanjali Gutierrez, the Information Commissioner.

Mr Simons said that details were still outstanding on “how the fees will be calculated and how the fees will apply”, adding that they could be seen as “a deterrent to a Pati request”.