Just under 1,700 students are registered for the Island?s two public senior schools for September ? that?s an increase of about 100 students over 2004.

Education Minister Terry Lister said 1,020 students are registered for CedarBridge Academy ? an increase of 38 ? while 566 students are registered at Berkeley Institute ? an increase of 62.

Mr. Lister attributed the increase at Berkeley to the transition to the new campus in January next year. He said over the next few years, the Department hopes to see the numbers at the two senior schools ?balance out?.

?We really need to have Berkeley taking another 150 students away from CedarBridge,? he said.

Mr. Lister said at least 95 percent of public middle school students are continuing to senior schools in the public system.

The Minister is also hoping to bolster the academic support that students receive when they are outside of school.

Mr. Lister said even though teachers do a great job teaching, if the parental support is missing at home, their efforts are often in vain.

?It?s all tied up with having the parent take responsibility for their child,? he said.

This concern was echoed in the Senate last month by Opposition Senator Bob Richards, who said one of the biggest hurdles to successful public education is the tendency of parents to let their children down.

Sen. Richards said parents seem to think it is the state?s job to educate their children, when in fact the primary responsibility is their own.

?Many home environments are not conducive to enable their children to have the self control, the discipline, self confidence and the desire to learn,? he said. ?I believe many of our pupils are being let down by their parents.?

Mr. Lister agreed with these sentiments noting that graduation numbers over the past few years have indicated that students are entering school with various ?weaknesses?.

He said it will take a combined effort of both schools and families to overcome these.

Out of the 154 students who started the S4 year at CedarBridge Academy last September, only 49 percent graduated, while 61 percent graduated at the Berkeley Institute.

The combined total of students graduating from the two public schools was 53 percent with 120 students out of a starting pool of 258 leaving without a Bermuda Secondary School certificate (BSC).

These figures do not take into account the amount of students who re-write exams or attend summer school, however.

Mr. Lister said two weeks before the end of the school year, teachers at the two senior schools offered to ?re-teach? students who would not be graduating with their classmates.

Of those students who took advantage of the offer, writing new exams, Mr. Lister said the majority passed.

?But for those who failed again and still wanted to graduate, we ran a summer school programme,? he added.

Of the 218 senior students who attended summer school this year, 179, or 82 percent passed the courses and got BSC credit.

But Mr. Lister said the public should not make the opinion that they are spoon-feeding pupils.

A country as small as Bermuda, cannot not afford to lose even one student, he suggested.

?That?s why we stay with it and try our very best to get these kids to perform at the level that?s acceptable,? Mr. Lister said.

As for the number of youngsters who simply drop out of school, Mr. Lister said the Ministry is keen to develop a mechanism to track students from the first grade of P1 to the final year of S4.

?We would also be interested in determining how to (better) measure success,? he said.

While some students drop out of school to simply end up ?sitting on a wall?, others drop out of the public system to attend private schools abroad, he noted.

He admitted that some families elect to send children abroad because they are fed up with the public school system, but suggested others do so because it is in their ?family plan?. If the father was sent abroad to school, in most cases his children will be sent away as well, he suggested.

According to 2004 census data, four percent of Bermudian students are sent overseas for school.