Government, through a review being conducted by the Attorney General, has made an interesting call out to the people for ideas on how we can fix our education system.  You can write to submit your insights into the Bermuda school system by writing to bermudareview[at]yahoo.com.  What we are witnessing is more of a rise in public consultation which is a great thing to see.  What we can hope is that our government shall listen, that it shall harness the strength of all Bermudians for ideas on how to bring desperately needed change to our education system. 

Do we have standardized testing across the island for both public and private schools?  Something that will give us a solid measurement of the performance of each student across our entire education system so that we can assess the progression and improvements we make to our education system?  Do we have a standardized curriculum to ensure that all students are learning the right tools at each level?

Can failing students be held back if they need extra assistance?  Can we afford to pay teachers more in order to retain their skills over the summer to teach those students who need that extra bit of attention to make it through the year?  Not just a summer school, but a full complement of teachers so that we can vastly reduce our teacher to student ratios for the summer term?  What is our current teacher to student ratio and how do we compare to other countries where there are successful educations?

As a friend suggested, can we encourage more positive male role models and try to spread our schools more evenly so that children in younger grades have ones in older to look up to?  This as a contrast to what may well be happening now where the only role models in school are of the same age group, drop out and take a great many followers with them?

Are these the kinds of questions you would be asking?  Do you have ideas and insights into how the Bermuda school system could be improved?  Could you have the suggestion that could make the difference of an education for our island’s children?

Take a moment to make the most of this opportunity, submit your thoughts and watch for the review.  When the review comes, take a moment to review it yourself, find out if they’ve come up with good ideas of how we can fix our education system and tell your representative that you want to see the best ideas pushed forward so that we can start making a difference today and put our country back on the right track.