expected to be in place by October, Education Minister the Hon. Gerald Simons revealed yesterday.

At a press conference on the 1991/92 school year report, Mr. Simons said the restructuring process was "well on the way''.

And he praised his Ministry and all public school employees for successfully completing the majority of the Ministry's objectives for the past school year, including a "majority'' of plans set out in the first and second phase of the Education Planning Team's five-year strategy.

"The true measure of the success of an education system has to be the performance of students in that system,'' Mr. Simons said.

"Over the years our students have performed consistently well on the BEAP (Bermuda Educational Assessment Programme) test, the BSSC (Bermuda Secondary School Certificate), and overseas examinations.

"In the California Achievement Test (CAT), for example, our students have consistently out-performed their US counterparts at the primary level and in 1990 and 1991 have significantly narrowed the gap between them and their US counterparts at the secondary level.'' He also noted that the percentage of students (81 percent or 348) graduating from the BSSC programme had remained constant.

And the percentage of students graduating with five or more GCEs (General Certificate of Education) had decreased slightly from 25 percent last year to 21 percent.

Mr. Simons said while there was no concrete way of comparing Bermuda students' performances with students in the UK, 90 percent of the Island's students further their education or receive some technical training after leaving high school, compared to 50 percent of UK students.

"This indicates our system is doing far better in keeping students in school,'' he said, adding that Bermuda's drop-out rate remained around six percent.

Praising education staff, particularly the five-member Administration and Personnel team that handles hundreds of applications dealing with teaching positions to financial assistance, Mr. Simons said: "No organisation can be successful without strong leadership, whether at the school level or the central office level''.

But, he said, the burden of carrying out restructuring plans while managing the existing school system will be lifted for education officers currently carrying out both tasks.

"A special implementation team will be established in order to expedite the restructuring process,'' he said.

The temporary team, including a communications officer, project manager, curriculum coordinator, and a manpower planning officer, will exist for three years.

The restructuring, which involves setting up five middle schools, two senior secondary schools, and integrating special students into regular schools, is expected to be completed by September, 1995.

Mr. Simons said the design brief for middle schools has been completed and "significant progress has been made on the designs of individual middle schools''.