With more than 50 percent of young black males leaving the public school system before completing the full four years, Columbia Professor Ronald Mincy decided to meet with 18 boys who were on track to graduate from one of the Island's two public schools and find out what had motivated them to stay in school.

The interviews were part of the 222-page study into young black males, released on Monday, which was titled'On the Wall or on the Margins? A study of employment, earnings and educational attainment gaps between young black males and their same age peers'.

The one-on-one interviews appear to reveal that while many of the teens express an interest in pursing college education overseas they do not know how to go about achieving their goal.

Moreover, several of the young men attribute their immaturity to early scholastic failures and look to emulate their fathers by working with their hands, eschewing higher paying office jobs they deem to be boring.

The young men quoted in the report, whose names were changed, represented 35 percent of the males graduating from the public school last year and 16 percent of the black males who started in the school in S1.

When both public schools are taken into account Dr. Mincy said:"Once on site in Bermuda, we learned that more than 50 percent of Black Males leave the public high schools prior to completion".

Here is what the study, and the boys, had to say.

Interviewer Monique Jethwani-Keyser wrote:"Leon, age 18, did not work too hard when he started high school but with family support, in this case from his Dad, he realised he needed to concentrate on his schoolwork if he wanted to 'get out' of high school"

Leon told her:"My first year of high school I played around; I didn't do any homework. I just went to class, took notes, and went by that. I didn't study and just flew just scraped by passing. For my dad when I talked to my dad for the second time, I realised that hey, this is not a joke. If I don't pass classes, I'm not getting out of here. I just realised that I needed to buckle down and not really worry about social life as much as my school for now."

Now Leon worries that he still has "some maturing to do" and thinks that Bermuda College will give him the time to do that.

"Then I'll think of where I want to go after that,"he told her.

"Regino has also struggled with maturity in high school and worries about getting distracted by peers at Bermuda College,"she wrote. "He explains that when he started school, he struggled with his commitment to his education.

Regino said:"When I first started HS, I was the type of person that didn't care about school. And then, as I got a little older, I started realising reality, like life is supposed to start and you really can't go nowhere without a high school diploma. So, I decided to buckle down and start getting my work done. That's why I'm graduating this year."

When he considered dropping out of high school, his mother encouraged him to pursue a GED, he added:"Cuz she didn't think I was going to be able to make it cuz the way my attitude was when I was in S1, S2 it was like I didn't care about nothing. But, I didn't care, I cared, but I just came to school, and then didn't do nothing; sleep in class, talk, and then once I got in S3 it all stopped."

He is now pleased to be proving his mother wrong and graduating from high school.

Arthur, 17, adds that he does not think female students face the same maturity problem.

"In most of the classes the girls, they get along better with the teachers than most of the boys,"he said. "Cuz the boys, we tend to slack off the most, first ones to start talking, kinda got a lot of us, we just mess up the whole programme at times. Sometimes I might throw a class off or like if you look at all the class clowns or characters there's mainly males. Every now and then you might have one girl that just disrupts the class, always trying to do something out of the norm, but mainly males disrupt things. You know if you look around the students that like joke around with the teachers, you'll find that the males react better if their teacher is joking around and stuff, but at times they're the ones that get in the most trouble and kicked out the most."

When it came to their future Ms Jethwani-Keyser said it appeared that many of them were "unable to articulate the steps it would take to apply for, and finance, an overseas college education". The interviews took place in May 2009, one month before graduation.

"Regino, who has no interest in attending Bermuda College, has not yet submitted overseas college applications because he knows that he has to secure a scholarship first," she wrote. "His sister is helping him with scholarship applications, which he describes as "not that easy" and as a process that will "take awhile."

"I'm applying now," Regino told her. "I should have been done a long time ago, but I've been so busy I couldn't really get a lot done. Now I'm trying to get it done so I can leave by September. Or not, stay for a year, work, and make some money. I have a job now, so… "

If Regino does not get a scholarship for dance at college he said he does not have a second plan. Jethwani-Keyser added:"It is likely that Regino will continue to work at the shipping company where he is currently employed."

Arthur told her that some students became aware of scholarships because representatives from programmes and companies came to their school.

He said:"We had some form of fair at the beginning of the year I think, uh, was that a career fair?" It was just some fair, I remember they had like a lot of random people at the school showing us different things, um, they had like some mechanics and things like that. And they had like a little Police thing set up in the gym. They had like the new Police bikes and a few officers at a table and an old lady she had all these booklets with the um Police cadet application forms and all that stuff."

Ms Jethwani-Keyser wrote:"However, Arthur is the only student in our sample that has already been accepted into a scholarship programme and an overseas university. He reports that when this scholarship was presented to the senior class, only five students showed up."

Arthur said:"The guidance counsellor announced it to all of us, but only about five of us showed up to the meeting. It was available for everybody but then uh a few I think there was only two of us that actually went through with the um, application and well both of us got it."

Ms Jethwani-Keyser said 39 percent of the students she spoke with expressed interest in entering the trades profession, 28 percent were interested in arts such as dance and film. Another 28 percent want to pursue professional sports and 17 percent were interested in the sciences.

Only one student was interested in become a lawyer and no one wanted to enter international business.

She said that many were encouraged to enter the trades by their family, one example being Arthur, the only boy with a college scholarship who had initially planned on going into the risk management field and becoming an actuary.

He said:"Like I was thinking of doing that, cuz like I'm strong in math."

"But, he was convinced by his mother that engineering would be more in line with what he likes because it would be more hands on,"Ms Jethwani-Keyser wrote.

"Well she always wants me to do something that I'm gonna like,"he explained. "When I used to tell her I wanted to go into the business field, she really didn't think that was for me and I think she was right there.

"She always tells me, well I'm always like working on bikes like every night I'm working on my bikes and stuff, engines and stuff. She always like encouraged me to go into like that field and stuff like in the mechanical area, but I always you know thinking of money first. Yeah it's Bermuda, I wanted to get a job in one of the big insurance firms there so, but like she kinda help me out in making up that decision that uh, that something more hands-on was right for me.

"Something where I'm actually active and not just sitting and you know. Something where I'm actually moving around, like social talking the whole day through, just doing what I'd have to do."

Ms Jethwani-Keyser wrote: "Like many of the boys in our study, Arthur is concerned about making a lot of money.

"But his mother convinced him that he would be happiest and experience greater job satisfaction if he was working with his hands, even if he might earn less money as an engineer than he would in the business industry.

"Preference for 'hands on' professions also stems from the perception that they offer more flexibility than office jobs, in terms of hours and job activities, and will provide the opportunity to have their own, or take over the family business."

Charles told her he hopes to play basketball professionally but if that does not work out:"I'm trying to get a degree so I can get a job where I don't have to do too much work. I don't want to work 9:00 to 5:00."

And some of the boys expressed that they had not had enough help with their future plans from their school until S4.

Charles said:"The college planning programme here is a complete let-down because it goes in depth in what you should do but they just don't really help you fully. Like I don't feel like I got any decent support here. All the information I found, I found on my own, on my own research. So, it's really not helpful."

He added that it did not happen until senior year which he described as "a little bit late to try to get you ahead". He said:"I've had people ask me like the counsellors will ask you, you know what do you want to do and they'll call you in like once every eight months or so you'll see them maybe once or twice every couple years about it, but like I mean, but they don't really sit down and they don't go over like, oh OK well, what's your skills? What's your ambition? How much money would you like to make?"

To see the complete report, click here