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Dear Sir,

Please permit me to have your attention. I am a mother of four children who successfully passed through the public school system prior to 1990. Now I am a grandmother and two of my grandchildren are in the current school system. I have dogs in this fight.

Firstly, let us look at statistics. Approximately 30 per cent of all births in Bermuda are to single mothers, some of whom are barely into their mid teens and possibly had to drop out or interrupt their education to deliver their babies. There is a very high divorce rate, which again increases the number of children being raised in single parent households, with or without assistance from the other parent.

Logically, only those children whose parents are married and financially stable can be expected to be enrolled in the fee paying private schools, where educational success is generally at a high average.

Possibly these parents were well educated themselves and motivated and able to encourage and assist their students in reaching the required goals.

This would appear to exclude, for the most part, those children who find themselves in single parent homes, due to the financial hardships common to single parents, many of whom work two jobs to keep up with the high cost of essentials. So we have established a likelihood that possibly as many as 60 per cent of children in our public school system may be financially disadvantaged, parentally disadvantaged and possibly emotionally disadvantaged by the hardships of their family situation. Experience has shown me that such children are often angry, disappointed and easily distracted or led astray by their peers.

Under these circumstances, our public education system needs to provide, from the earliest point in each child's school career: Instruction in life skills, pro-active counselling and real encouragement to ensure that, in reality, NO CHILD WILL BE LEFT BEHIND.

There is no reason to suppose that persons who have dedicated their lives to the teaching profession are not truly making every effort to help their students learn, but in addition to good teachers, we must have for each class, a counsellor/ teaching assistant, who can provide lifeskills training, encouragement and support in basic learning skills.

Add to this a system which tests the progress of each student at regular and frequent intervals throughout the school year, to assist in maintaining the level of achievement required for that year's syllabus and a clearly understood policy of recycling every student who does not achieve the required level of

competence.

Better to do any level of primary or secondary education twice over than to fall steadily further behind your peers because you did not grasp the basics early on.

Demoralizing

Nothing is more demoralizing or discouraging than falling behind, but many children are afraid or unwilling, to ask for the help they need, parents may be unaware of the problem, or unable, due to their own educational shortcomings, to be of any help to their child. Disappointed, angry children act out and drop out - we have to save our kids from failure.

The system has to spot the problems early and provide the necessary help and encouragement to ensure that each student will succeed in learning all the basics he needs, to read and write good English, do basic Maths and conduct himself in a manner which is conducive to employment on leaving school, for even the least able among our students.

Clearly, the aim is to raise the standards of achievement across the board, for Bermuda has some of the healthiest and brightest youngsters on the planet, but they need direction and encouragement or they may simply grow like weeds and realize, only late in life, that they could have done so much more if the system had not let them fall through the cracks.

I do realize that this will probably require considerably more funds being put into the Educational System, but our children are our future - there is no better investment than in the health and education of our children.

I doubt if there would be any protest from the community if we placed more emphasis on greater spending for teachers' salaries and recruiting, training and paying good salaries to the support staff/counsellors. It is not the buildings that matter, it is the people in them who inspire kids to want to learn and achieve.

Lastly, but probably quite as important, we need a really creative programme for after school care and homework programmes, so that kids are not let loose on the streets to wander home to empty houses before their parents can be home to feed and supervize them.

The education budget should include funding for staff and materials for this. Did I mention text books?

This is a small enough community that we should be able to manage this, It is not rocket science and the island's future depends upon the success of all our children.

Margaret Dyer Forster

City of Hamilton[[In-content Ad]]

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