As an adjunct to the Overseas Territories Consultative Council meet, the Premier of Bermuda, The Hon. Dr. Ewart Brown, was generous enough to host the fourth annual Premier’s Dinner for Bermudian students studying in the UK. The event was held...
The UK has just announced that students from UK Overseas Territories, including Bermuda, will pay the same university tuition fees as UK students. Fees for overseas students at British universities are considerably higher than those for locals, so this move...
The future of debate in Bermuda looks bright if the young people I saw at the 17th Annual Senior and Middle School Debate Tournament at Bermuda College on Saturday afternoon are anything to go by. The tournament, hosted by the...
When I first heard the claim that the mould problem at Cedarbridge Academy might be serious enough to require the demolition of the school, I was sceptical. After reading the article in today’s Royal Gazette, I became even more so....
When your new school cost $50 million more and took 3 years longer to build than you originally said it would, it must be a little embarrassing to have to admit the roof still leaks. At first, I was sympathetic,...
Good for the Westgate inmates who recently received their GEDs and Culinary Arts certificates. But I had to laugh when I saw this photo. I can hear the Gazette's photographer now: "C'mon guys, I need you to look happy! I...
I’m sorry to hear that ill health has prompted UBP MP and Shadow Education Minister Neville Darrell to announce that he will step down at the next election. However, I think the party will only benefit from having someone else...
The Bermuda Sloop Foundation’s Spirit of Bermuda was launched in Rockport, Maine on Sunday. I've put up some more pictures of the launch here. If anyone else has any pictures they’d like to share, drop me an email and I’ll...
Last week, the sloop Spirit of Bermuda was moved through the town of Rockport, Maine, in readiness for its maiden voyage to Bermuda this Sunday. WCSH6 Portland has a video story about the move and there are more pictures here...
The decision of teachers at Francis Patton Primary School to call in “sick” today was wrong, unnecessary, self-indulgent and foolish. Wrong, because regardless of the validity of their grievances, 21 days notice is required for strike action. Unnecessary, because such...
Ideally, community service should be voluntary. But that depends on the concept of service to community being inculcated in every youth — one cannot be expected to volunteer for something of which one is ignorant. I believe many families in...
Calvin writes: "Educating Private Ryan has shown us that many Bermudians believe that broader forms of community service should be considered as valid alternatives to serving in the Bermuda Regiment. One suggested candidate is the Big Brother program and it...
The Ministry of Education has recently released a new "Information Technology Learning Portal". It contains a lot of interesting information about the public education system, including details of the curricula and a fledgling forum. The homepage will prompt you for...
Earlier this month, the Government introduced a scheme to enable soldiers in the Bermuda Regiment to receive special grants to further their education at the Bermuda College. Last week, the Shadow Minister for Race Relations and Economic Empowerment, Jamahl Simmons,...
The allegations made by former Berkeley project engineer Gabriel Martel in Friday’s Mid Ocean News will do little to restore public faith in the competence and honesty of some of those involved in the beleaguered project. Mr. Martel alleges that...
Think that the intelligent design zealots are confined to the US? Think again. A recent survey in the UK asked respondents what they thought best described the origin and development of life. 48% said evolution, 39% said creationism or intelligent...
The Living Values character education programme that has been piloted at three primary schools appears to have been a big success. According to Education Minister Terry Lister, student office referrals dropped by 80% within the first year. Moreover, parents and...
In Friday’s Bermuda Sun, columnist Larry Burchall accused Bermuda’s teachers of dishonesty for attempting to boost scores in the annual Terra Nova tests by not submitting poorly performing students for them. His claim was based on a full page advert...
In my younger days I attended a school called Hymers College. It was named after some chap called John Hymers, a local clergyman who died in 1887 and left some money in his will for the founding of a school....
For some time, I’ve been struggling to justify my degree choice to both myself, my peers and (to a lesser extent), Bermudian society as a whole. I have recently sent a barrage of letters to the editor. While expressing my...
Singapore has just held the world's first inter-school blogging competition. Jointly organized by the Education Ministry and Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), the country's biggest player in the telecoms market, the championship attracted more than 50 schools nationwide. Five junior colleges and...
Education Minister Terry Lister should hire Cedarbridge principal Kalmar Richards as his PR advisor. Here's what Mr. Lister said about the awful graduation rates from the Island's public schools in response to a critical opinion column by Christian Dunleavy: "Dunleavy's...
Fellow blogger and Royal Gazette columnist Christian Dunleavy clearly hit a nerve with his recent column, which called for a public inquiry into why only 53% of students graduate from the Island’s public schools. In a grumpy letter to the...
I'm not sure what to think about Cedarbridge Academy preventing students sitting their exams for being incorrectly dressed or not having their student IDs. On the one hand I applaud the school's attempt to instill respect for the rules and...
It's been just over a year since the Bermuda Sun first alleged that Bermuda College lecturer Abdallah Ahad lied about his qualifications on his CV. 99 days later, after Mr. Ahad failed to prove that his qualifications were genuine, the...
Pondblog's Gavin Shorto weighs in on the debate over the Ashay Rites of Passage programme in this month's issue of Bermudian Business. His column also looks at some of the complexities of the reparations issue that Ashay has chosen to...
Here's the UBP's official position on the Ashay Rites Of Passage programme, courtesy of Shadow Minister for Race Relations and Economic Empowerment, David Dodwell: "The United Bermuda Party strongly supports the notion of African Centric history being taught in our...
Letter to the editor of the Mid Ocean News: I would very much like to congratulate Alvin Williams on his terrific Commentary piece in last weekend's paper (Mid Ocean News, March 18). Does he have an email address? If so,...
Following the announcement of the creation of the Honourable Jennifer M. Smith Scholarship last Thursday, other politicians have announced their intention to set up scholarship fundsi The Honourable Jennifer M. Smith Scholarship will be available to any student with a...
While I’m flattered to find myself the subject of Alvin Williams’ column in the Mid Ocean News for a second week, it’s also awfully depressing. I try to think carefully about the words I use. It’s important to me that...
During Friday’s Budget debate on the topic of education, Education Minister Terry Lister announced that the Ministry of Education will evaluate the Ashay programme and use the information to decide about implementing it at other schools. If it does decide...
The following letter was sent to the Royal Gazette by LaVerne Furbert in response to my recent column on the Ashay Rites of Passage programme, although it has not yet been published. It was also printed in the 4 March...
The problems facing Bermuda's black men have previously been the subject of calls for action from, among others, political activist Rolfe Commissiong, former Premier John Swan and former PLP senator Calvin Smith. However, it seems that Bermuda isn't the only...
Dear Mr. Williams, I would like to take the opportunity to reply to the comments you made about me in your column in Friday's Mid Ocean News, which was itself a response to my recent Royal Gazette column critiquing the...
Royal Gazette Opinion, 24 February 2005 Last week, a concerned parent sent me the student workbook used to teach the Ashay Rites of Passage programme at Dellwood Middle School. The school had repeatedly refused my requests to see the curriculum....
I have been able to get hold of a copy of the student handbook for the Ashay Rites of Passage programme. I will comment further on this once I have had chance to fully digest it myself. However on the...
It's Black History Month again. Established in 1926 by Harvard scholar Dr. Carter G Woodson the event is celebrated in the US - and Bermuda - every February. I have to admit, I find it slightly puzzling that what seems...
In recent months there have been a number of suggestions as to how to fix Bermuda's underperforming public school system. In July last year a Royal Gazette editorial suggested that Bermuda should look at the education reforms being conducted in...
The author of the Ashay Rites of Passage programme is a passionate believer in the need for blacks to receive reparations to right the wrongs of the past, and believes that African-centered education is a necessary and critical part of...
In case anyone missed it (I know not everyone who looks at this site reads the comments), the creator of the Ashay Rites Of Passage programme, Mwalimu Melodye Micere Van Putten, has posted more details about it here. I'd like...
I didn’t spend much time studying history at school. After three years of turgid medieval and Tudor monarchs I’d had enough and elected to do a GCSE in Geography instead. As a result, I left school woefully ignorant of the...
Education Minister Terry Lister is obviously worried that he's not going to spend his budget for the year. On Friday the Government took out another full page ad in the Royal Gazette (page 39), this time to print, in full,...
On 1 September, Premier Alex Scott had this to say about the delays that would be introduced by the Government's decision to terminate the contract of ProActive to build the new senior secondary school at Berkeley. "If we are out...
At a lunch of Hamilton Rotarians yesterday, Sandys Middle School principal Melyvn Bassett raised some hard questions about the development of a two-tier education system in Bermuda. In some respects Bermuda is no different to many other Western countries in...
As more details emerge about the Berkeley debacle, it’s beginning to sound like responsibility for most of the delays and cost overruns lies with the Government rather than ProActive Management. Particularly revealing are the results of a recent risk assessment...
So the Government has finally bowed to the inevitable and cancelled the contract of ProActive Management to build the new Berkeley senior secondary school. As Christian Dunleavy points out, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The writing has...
Three cheers for the Government for finally making a decision on the Abdallah Ahad case. Friday 13th August was indeed an unlucky day for Mr. Ahad when the Public Service Commission eventually concurred with the Bermuda Sun's report that Mr....
Three months ago today, the Bermuda Sun alleged that Abdallah Ahad lied on his CV. 91 days and over $20,000 later, Mr. Ahad has still been neither cleared nor fired. As editor Tony McWilliam said in yesterday's Bermuda Sun, it's...
Isn’t that Terry Lister a nice man? Not wanting the 70% of our schoolchildren who recently failed their BSSC exams to worry about their future, I thought it was very considerate of him to reassure them that they can still...
Two months ago today, the Bermuda Sun revealed that Abdallah Ahad, the education officer responsible for the design and development of the IT curriculum for the public school system, may have lied about his qualifications on his CV. Amazingly, the...
Poor Terry Lister. Just as he thought things were getting better, with the resolution of the teacher's dispute and the St. George's Prep. issue, along comes another bad news story that makes me worry about the quality of the education...
Congratulations to journalists Gary Moreno and Matthew Taylor for being perhaps the first journalists to directly challenge Education Minister Terry Lister on some of the claims he's been making recently. Mr. Moreno asked Terry Lister for his response to claims...
The teachers' dispute is escalating. Early this morning teachers at most Government schools were called by their Union representatives and told to call in sick. As a result, the schools were forced to close for the day. While I sympathise...
The saga over Government IT education officer Abdallah Ahad, accused of lying about his qualifications on his CV, drags on. The Ministry of Education gave Mr. Ahad ten days after the publication of the original allegations in the Bermuda Sun...
It's getting increasingly difficult to escape the conclusion that Bermuda's public education system is in serious trouble. During the last few weeks, the papers have been filled with bad news about the Department of Education. First there was the St....
You have to pity PLP MPs for St. George's, Dean Foggo and Jennifer Smith. Caught between their party and angry St. George's parents, they're struggling to say whose side they're really on. Under the ridiculously heroic headline 'MPs vow to...
Shadow Education Minister Neville Darrell continues to demonstrate his lack of understanding of the St. George's Prep (SGP) issue. Speaking on VSB radio news this morning, interviewer Brian Darby asked him about Education Minister Terry Lister's assertion that admitting a...
I got quite excited earlier today when I heard that Education Minister Terry Lister was to give a press conference on the subject of St. George's Prep (SGP). Having only spoken on the issue on Friday, I wondered what new...
I now understand why so many members of Bermuda's delinquent youth pass their time sitting on walls. It's come to my attention that the punishment meted out to students who earn themselves a lunchtime detention at one of the Island's...
I've just watched Education Minister Terry Lister's pathetic justification for the cancellation of one of the P1 classes at St. George's Prep on VSB TV news. Anyone unfamiliar with the situation at the school should be careful not to take...
Education Minister Terry Lister has spoken. St. George's Prep will be stripped of its second P1 class in September. Since making the original announcement a couple of weeks ago, the Minister has come under enormous pressure from parents, the Royal...
I've just spent the evening at an emergency PTA meeting down at St. George’s Prep School, called to discuss the Minister of Education’s belated decision to eliminate one of the Primary One classes there next year. The hall was three-quarters...
Education Minister Terry Lister was back on VSB news this evening, trying to justify the axing of one of the Primary One classes at St. George's Prep. After listening to his arguments I think he needs to go back to...
Parents in St. George's are up in arms after the Ministry of Education's decision to reduce the numbers of streams of students at St. George's Preparatory School from two to one. To add insult to injury, the decision was announced...
The Berkeley fiasco has blown up again. On Thursday, Works & Engineering Minister Ashfield DeVent was forced into a humiliating admission that the project to build a new senior secondary school has slipped by another year and will now cost...
Archives By Date
