Britain yesterday announced the most radical reform of its education system in 30 years, unveiling a five-year plan giving schools greater autonomy and allowing popular schools to expand to meet demand from parents.

It is no coincidence that many of the complaints and unhappiness in the UK that have spurred these reforms are mirrored in Bermuda.

When the former United Bermuda Party government decided to do away with the 11-plus exam, abolish selective schools and introduce comprehensive education, much of the opposition to it stemmed from the fact that comprehensive education had already failed in the UK and elsewhere.

The UBP moved forward anyway, introducing middle schools ? which are reasonably successful ? and the two "mega-schools", which got off to a rocky start and are still not fully meeting the high expectations the Government set down for them.

In the meantime, parents have largely voted with their feet. Bermuda must now have the highest proportion of students in private schools of any country in the world, due almost entirely to lack of confidence in the public schools.

This has created a two-tier system of education which may be more divisive than the systems that preceded it. Until the 1960s, Bermuda's schools were divided by race. Through the 1970s and 1980s, the selective system of education meant that the brightest 12-year-olds went to Berkeley and Warwick Academy and the rest of the school-going population went to general schools. Boys in particular were condemned as second-rate, often unfairly.

The comprehensive system was supposed to cure that. Instead Bermuda is stuck with a system that separates students on the basis of wealth, with parents who can afford it sending their children to private schools and those who cannot feeling stuck in the public system.

That's not to say that there are not excellent students in the Government system. But no one can say for certain if they are succeeding because of the current system or in spite of it.

And there are gifted principals and teachers in the public system who simply wish to be set free to teach and to enable their students to fulfil their potential.

But the overall results for Government schools are poor. Literacy and numeracy rates have improved slightly but are still unsatisfactory, while the Terra Nova tests show that Bermuda's students still lag behind their American peers and, worst of all, the gulf widens the further they "progress" through the system.

The recent jump in enrolment at the Adult Education School and the increased use of remedial classes at the Bermuda College are further testimonies to the problems of public education. Clearly, something is wrong.

Bermuda is not alone in this. British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke on Wednesday night of an "entrenched three-tier" system of education in his country: Excellence for an elite, mediocrity or failure for the majority.

But at least Mr. Blair's government has the courage to admit that its system is failing and the courage to try to improve it.

In Bermuda, the opposite seems to be the case. When a popular and successful school, St. George's Prep, wanted to expand its entry, it was the Government that said no. Instead of rewarding success, it wanted to punish it and force parents to go elsewhere, working on the assumption that forcing parents to send children to less popular schools would somehow improve those schools.

The British scheme proposed yesterday does the opposite. Popular schools would have the financial and administrative independence to expand. Unpopular or failing schools would get additional resources to improve.

Giving schools independence to run their own budgets, recruit staff and expand ? with support from the private and public sectors ? lies at the heart of the reforms.

This is similar to the platform proposals made by the UBP in the last Election, whereas the Government seems to be determined to continue to concentrate authority and power in the Department of Education.

Now is the time to acknowledge the education system's problems and to look seriously at a revamp of a system that has lost and may not be able to regain the public's confidence.