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Damn! Listed in Government notice #540 were one hundred and seventy-one names. One hundred and eighteen girls and fifty-three boys. That's it. That's the total number of students in the public education system who achieved the Bermuda School Certificate [BSC] at the end of the school year, this year, in June 2006. Given that only about forty per cent of Bermudian high school age students are in the public system; given that eighteen years ago in 1988, some 800 cute little Bermudian boys and girls were born; given that 40 per cent of 800 is 320; it means that - eighteen years later - there would be about 300 - 320 Bermudian boys and girls in the age cohort who were being educated in the public system, who would be due for graduation in 2006.

With only 171 graduating with a BSC, that means that less than 60 per cent [about 57 per cent] of the whole 300 [320] have graduated. And that's being both conservative and generous.

Damn! But out of that 171, there were only 53 boys. Now, I grant that with modern naming, it's often difficult to determine - exactly - if a name indicates a male or a female. However, the error is likely to cancel out, so I'll stick with my count of 53 boys who've earned the BSC.

That means that out of the 150-160 boys who started with the 150-160 girls, only 35 per cent [or 33 per cent] of the boys have graduated. Compare that result with the girls where 77 per cent [74 per cent] graduated. That means that for every one boy who succeeds, there are two girls who succeed.

Damn!

Look at it another way, anywhere from 97 to 107 boys failed. Whereas, in the same system using the same teachers, using the same textbooks, using the same physical plant, breathing the same classroom air, coming in with the same range of social problems, 32 to 42 girls failed.

If the failure rate amongst the girls - it's 23 per cent [26 per cent] - is bad, then what, just what, description applies to the failure rate for boys which is more than twice as high as the girls' rate of failure. What description?

Damn! Here we are, 9,000 global workers on our shores. Canadian construction workers. Indian Information Technology workers. Goan gardeners. Philipinos, Barbadians, Portuguese, Poles, Jamaicans, English, Irish,….

What are we doing? We've just chucked about 100 more testosterone filled Bermudian males into this fiercely competitive job market that's got big American firms like General Motors scrambling for survival; and has much smaller Bermudian firms scrambling - just as hard as General Motors - to simply survive in Bermuda's winner-take-all and loser-goes-to-the-wall free and open economy.

These 100 under-educated Bermudian males cannot compete, cannot even start to compete, with hungry and aggressive Polish workers who have good skills and who surge out from a far-off country with over 15 per cent unemployment.

Or hard-working Goans who pour out from an even further-off country with an even higher 20 per cent unemployment and who recognize that their meagre savings from a job in Bermuda will still allow their families in Goa to move from real poverty to real wealth and wider fields of opportunity.

Damn! If these 100 under-educated and under-prepared Bermudian males cannot get into Bermuda's worker starved yet still bubbling economy, what do they do? What?

Well. They certainly don't disappear. They certainly don't turn up at the Bermuda College. They certainly don't staff the hospitality industry or the Bermuda Police Service or the pharmacy counters or the landscaping firms, or….

What, then, actually does happens with them?

Hey! Does anybody care what happens to them?

Does anybody care?

Does anybody care that this country is routinely stuffing young men into an underclass from which they have only a very limited opportunity to escape? Does anybody care that this escape opportunity declines with each additional day that they spend in that underclass? Does anybody care that the window of escape actually does eventually close on them?

Does anybody care? n

[FYI - In 2004, there were 141 'graduates' with BSC's. Of these, 105 were girls and 36 were boys. In 2005, there were 137 'graduates' with BSC's. Of these, 104 were girls and 33 were boys. In both years, as in this year, the same 'boy' factor exists.

Note that the 171 BSC 'graduates' reported in 2006 is an apparent improvement in overall graduation rates when compared to 2005's deep low of 46 per cent (300) or 43 per cent (320). In 2006, the 'boy' factor, slightly improved, still stands out.][[In-content Ad]]

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