The Berkeley Institute is considering opening a fee-paying facility offering a world-renowned qualification to senior school students.

The Berkeley International Baccalaureate (IB) Centre would be based on the school's old site in Pembroke and would be for the Island's brightest pupils aged between 16 and 19.

The idea is being developed by the Berkeley Foundation — a charitable body set up last year to raise funds for the school. Foundation chairman Craig Bridgewater told The Royal Gazette it was too early to discuss the plan as it was "still in the research phase". But the organisation is advertising the idea on its website — www.berkeleyfoundation.bm — where it states: "The Berkeley Foundation's first project will be the renovation of the Old Berkeley to support an IB Centre, to firstly house high achiever and remedial programmes."

This newspaper understands that the centre — based in renovated school buildings and likely to cost at least a million dollars — would have a separate principal and teachers from the Berkeley Institute.

It would operate as a business, with annual fees for students, and would be in direct competition with the other two schools offering IB: Bermuda High School for Girls (BHS) and Warwick Academy. The website says the centre would be aimed at giving students "opportunity to access the full range of tertiary education and employment opportunities". It adds: "The educational benefits of an IB Centre are numerous."

Education Minister Randy Horton confirmed on Friday that "curriculum options" were being looked at but said he was not at liberty to discuss them yet.

The two-year International Baccalaureate diploma is taught at schools all over the world and is considered an academically rigorous course, even for the most able students. The full diploma requires students to study six subjects, complete a 4,000-word essay, do 150 hours of service in the community and grasp high-brow philosophical concepts. Pupils can also sit individual IB certificates.

The Berkeley Foundation and the school's board of governors will have to consider whether there is enough of a market on the Island for another fee-paying IB centre. One private school source said: "I wonder how viable it is. I think we have quite a few pretty good college preparatory programmes available on the Island. I don't know that there would be a need for a whole other one."

Kate Ross, BHS's IB coordinator, described the IB diploma programme as "very tough". "I think that anybody who thinks that it's something that's the answer to education, you have to live with it to really understand.

"It's one of many options for a university preparation programme and not everybody can cope with that. My concern, perhaps, would be that we need to make sure that there is an option for success for everybody. IB certainly isn't that, nor is it set up to be that."

She added: "It's just very challenging. We are, at BHS, not a selective school and I have said to our own kids: 'this may not be the programme for you'. It's a fantastic programme and I'm committed to it 100 percent but I don't think it's for everybody. We need to make sure there is an alternative." She added that offering the programme could prove expensive for schools.

BHS's programme is nearly at full capacity with almost 80 students; Warwick had 42 pupils sit IB papers this year, with 16 attempting and 12 achieving the full diploma.

Warwick headmaster Robert Lennox described Berkeley's plan as "ambitious" but said he welcomed the competition. "I can vouch for the fact that it's extremely demanding but good luck to them," he said.

"A key factor is going to be the teachers who are going to have to run it. Teachers capable of teaching it are not easy to find. It's a two-year college entrance programme. Most teachers on Bermuda are not used to that. It's got implications for having to bring in more teachers unless they are seriously considering training their own."

The Berkeley Foundation is also planning to open a community health, wellness, fitness and aquatics centre on the same Berkeley Road site, according to its website.