Late registration by an unexpected number of students at CedarBridge Academy has forced the Education Ministry to look overseas for more teachers.

The Ministry placed advertisements in The Royal Gazette yesterday for temporary and full-time posts.

In one advertisement, the Ministry said it was looking to fill temporary posts, including paediatric occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, teacher assistants or paraprofessionals, a teacher for the visually impaired and an educational therapist.

The other stated that certified teachers were needed for design technology, cooperative education, physical education/health, mathematics, science, learning support (special education) for middle school and three primary school posts. Similar advertisements have been placed in newspapers in Toronto and London.

Senior manager of the Education Department's human resources Raymond Latter explained the full-time vacancies were mainly for posts at the Island's new senior secondary school.

"The CedarBridge advertisement is because the school has been overwhelmingly successful,'' he said. "We've been flooded with (interest in enrolment).

Originally we were expecting 950 and at the moment there are 1,150 going on to 1,200. Therefore there is a need for more teachers.'' Mr. Latter said because many of the students who registered late signed up for the design and technology classes, there was a need to fill posts in that area "quite desperately''.

He added the Ministry was looking for people to fill temporary posts mainly in the special needs area because Government did not want to "increase the formal establishment with those posts''.

"We anticipate that we will need these people to meet the number of special needs students that we have in this coming year,'' Mr. Latter said. "Next year we may not need so many. So this is why they are temporary posts. Each year it will be reassessed.

"Some of them we will have to hire from overseas and bring in on contract, so we will employ them for two years so that we are not tied in to long-term.

Some we might need for three years. It very much depends upon the particular needs of the students.'' With all certified Bermudian teachers and their spouses having been placed in the restructured public school system, Mr. Latter said the Ministry also expected to have to look overseas for some of the required seven learning support teachers.

The deadline for applications to all of the posts is August 27.

But Mr. Latter said he was "cautiously optimistic'' that they will be filled in time for the new school year which begins next month.

"Some of them we're already on the way to filling. Obviously we have to put the advertisements in and do things properly. While we've been doing that we've been looking at people.

"Some of those posts which are advertised we're already interviewing for and some of them will have to come from overseas. We've placed all of the specialists we have.''