One of the most important recommendations to be adopted out of the Hopkins Report on education was the implementation of an internationally recognised examination for Bermuda’s students.Prior to this, public schools were limited to Bermuda exams, which, while locally relevant, were not widely recognised by either universities or potential employers. More importantly, there was no yardstick by which to measure the public schools’ performance, either with Bermuda’s private schools, or with education systems abroad.So it was welcome news when then-Education Minister Elvin James announced that the Cambridge International GCSE curriculum and exams would be introduced in Bermuda. The choice was a good one, because not only was the IGCSE internationally recognised, it was seen as being among the more rigorous GCSE exams available.Given that Bermuda was adopting a new curriculum, some teething problems would be expected. Perhaps sensibly, only IGCSE English, maths and science would be required at the outset for public school students, although this newspaper hoped more subjects would be added over time. The results were finally made public last week, some three months after they were received.Almost all institutes of higher learning consider five GCSE passes of C or above as the minimum standard for preparing for university education. This is the universal standard for rating school performance as well.So how are Bermuda’s students doing? In English, 38 percent scored a C or higher. In maths, eight percent scored a C or higher. In science, 25 percent scored a C or higher.How does this compare with overall IGCSE results? In English, 80 percent scored a C or higher. In maths, 75 percent scored a C or higher. In science, 61.8 percent scored a C or higher.In Bermuda’s private schools, 85 percent of Warwick Academy students received five passes of C or higher, Saltus Grammar School recorded an 89 percent rate and Bermuda High School for Girls reported a 91 percent rate.This is the first year that substantial numbers of public school students have taken the exams, and the results are terrifying. An eight percent pass rate in maths is just shocking. By comparison, 38 percent and 25 percent pass rates in English and science look good. But they’re not. They are very poor.Dame Jennifer Smith attempted to defend the results by saying that the Island’s public education system is comprehensive.“This means that we teach to all student levels and abilities,” she said. “We do not have, not should we have, the discretion of selecting students, or only putting forward certain students. The decision to implement the Cambridge Curriculum was to provide an international benchmark to compare our students to their counterparts in other jurisdictions.”No one should expect 100 percent pass rates in any of these exams. But to be so far behind the international standard is indefensible.What is especially hard to square is the idea that the same students who cannot pass a IGCSE exam go on two years later to graduate from high school, allegedly prepared for university or work. According to Dame Jennifer, 95 percent of students attained a 2.0 grade point average in high school and therefore graduated. Yes these same students are failing GCSE exams in extraordinary numbers. Some years ago, Bermuda was recording very poor high school graduation rates. Then the rates improved quite dramatically. Either the schools were improving very quickly, or standards were being lowered.The only conclusion that can be drawn from these GCSE results is that the graduation requirements have been so watered down that they are meaningless. And that is a tremendous disservice to Bermuda’s students.