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By the late 1980s - to any interested or astute observer - it had to be apparent that two things were happening in education. First, there was a growing national mismatch between what the public education system was pushing out, and what Bermuda's national job market was demanding.  Second, in an inevitable generational change, Bermudians were turning away from the hospitality industry.

The private schools, having never abandoned the GCSE programme, were able to go on funneling their student output into the new national job market and its supporting services. The public schools were much less successful. By the mid-80's, this fact and difference was both visible and measurable.

In 1970, almost all Bermudians looked to the Hospitality Industry as the primary source of jobs and careers.  A people intensive business, the Industry needed people who had a wide range of skills. Accountants, bakers, chefs, doormen, entertainers,.....

Some jobs required specialized training. Many others could be 'picked up' and mastered 'on the job'. Generally, somewhere in the Tourism Industry or its supporting services, a person who was basically numerate and literate could find a job paying a decent income that was in line, more or less, with the skills, energy, and personality that the person brought to that job.

Before 1970, right through to about 1990, the basic education offered and delivered by the public system - culminating in the BSSC - was probably sufficient to meet the needs of the hospitality industry.

But by 1980, even as Bermuda was enjoying its 'Gold Year of Tourism', critical fundamentals had changed. First? That human generational shift. Second? International Business became the new national business model.

The generational shift happened naturally, therefore predictably. Bermuda's tourist industry effectively re-started in 1947. For half a lifetime - 35 years - all those Bermudian taxi-drivers, waiters, barmen, chambermaids, and so on... worked all the hours they could. They earned good money. They used that hard-earned money to buy houses and educate their children. They educated their children, as every generation does, so that their children would "do better".

"Doing better" meant that the child of a chambermaid was put through college so that on graduating, that person could be a better paid and higher status professional of one kind or another.  This happened throughout this community.

By 1987, 40 years after Tourism's re-start, the inevitable had arrived. That first hotel worker generation was retiring and dying. Their progeny did not replace them. Guest workers replaced these disappearing Bermudians. Even by the early-1980s, this disappearing of Bermudians was recognizable.

By 1987, International Business (IB) was beginning its lift-off. This new national business model absorbed most of the first tranche of college-educated Bermudian sons and daughters. These sons and daughters were also replacing that element of non-Bermudian guest workers who had been imported in the 1960s and 1970s and who were threaded throughout the community.     

By 1997, IB had muscled tourism into second place, and tourism itself had shrunk.  National bed count down by 18 per cent; visitor arrivals down by 11 per cent; employment in Tourism down by 10 per cent.  IB, however, was expanding. From 1987 to 1997, IB grew 34 per cent; from 6,712 people to 9,014.

IB's needs were different. IB needed people who were highly literate and numerate. People who could function efficiently in a global market.  People able to absorb and profit from some kind of tertiary - but not necessarily university - education and training.

In 1987 that was exactly where public education with its BSSC was NOT going.

Between the two systems - BSSC and GCSE - there was a clear difference in the quality and quantity of scholastic output. Quite clearly, the public system was under-performing academically. As well, with the removal of Bermuda Technical Institute, the public system no longer delivered good vocational training. The public system was failing in both areas.

In 2002, the public system was still clinging on to and defending the BSSC. It had 99 per cent abandoned the GCSE.  The public system dealt with the quality issue by not publishing and comparing its results. The public system was also busily touting what it was describing - self-describing, because it has never provided any evidence - as severe social problems and a high incidence of 'special needs' persons within its general student body.

In March 2007, the Hopkins Report finally and publicly condemned Bermuda's Public Education system as a failed system. The government accepted this Report's findings. It had taken more than 17 years to acknowledge what was an increasingly obvious fact. It took still another year before government began real action on that Report.

For 30 years, from 1980 to 2009, the private system - unlike the public system - had simply soldiered on with the GCE/GCSE. The private system never changed its basic curriculum, but it did keep up with global changes in curricula details.

On May 29, 2009, the then sixteenth Minister for Education promised that the public system would start playing catch-up. He promised that the system would revert to the U.K.-based Cambridge International Examination - a GCSE style and standard curriculum currently in use in over 100 countries.

When would catch-up start? n

Part 1 of this series appeared in the Wednesday, Sept. 30 edition. Next Wednesday, part three will look at 'Fixing the Problem and Going Forward'. The whole series will be posted on our website: www.bermudasun.bm

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