Education Minister El James has championed new Board of Education chairman Mark Byrne and revealed that, like the Flagstone Re boss, he sent his children to private school.

Mr. James told The Royal Gazette that the Island's state schools were not the "number one choice" for parents and said they had every right to opt for a fee-paying school instead.

He spoke out in support of Mr. Byrne yesterday after former chief education officer Joseph Christopher said he was unsuitable as chairman because his three oldest children go to Warwick Academy.

The Minister said: "Mark Byrne has 15 years of educational leadership under his belt. He's been on various school boards so he knows what he's talking about. "When we choose people for a board, we are not looking for whether they choose public school, we are looking for leadership. He is definitely committed to taking us to the next level.

"Right now, I don't think you could find anyone with more of a commitment than Mark Byrne. He is energetic, he is really a go-getter, he is hyped and he is enthusiastic about seeing the reform succeed."

Mr. James said there was "no way" he would question anyone's committed to the much-needed reform of public schools because their children were in private school. "We have an education system that we want to make the number one choice on this Island," he said. "If it's not the number one choice at the moment, everyone has the choice to put their children where they want."

He said the fact that last year the nine "prestigious"university scholarships offered by Government all went to private school pupils "must say something"about where the best results were being achieved.

"I'm not going to decry the private schools,"he said. "I'm going to look at where they are; I'm going to use their levels as my target. That's where Iwant to be or even better."

The Minister's own son and daughter work in the public school system but were educated at fee-paying Bermuda Institute for academic and religious reasons.

Mr. James said:"My children both attended private school. I would have loved to have saved that money but hopefully I'll make it so that those in the future will be able to save that money because they are going to get a quality education when they leave public school."

He pointed out that US president Barack Obama's children attend private school. "You don't have the US citizens kicking off about it," he said.

"What we want to do now is make certain that our system is as good as or better than the private system. That's our intention. We have brought in individuals from the private sector, from the business sector. We have some there that represent the private schools and the public schools."

Dr. Christopher claimed the new Board of Education lacked parental representation but the Minister said that was "absolute nonsense" and that he had "total faith" in the members to push through reform. Asked who was a parent representative on the board, he said there were people whose children had gone through the public school system, such as Nelson Hunt.

"They are people who have a stake in this Island. That's not even an argument, that I need to have a child in the system in order to have a stake in it. I'm looking around this country at the best leadership that we can have to take the board forward.

"We all live here in Bermuda; this society affects us all. We all have a stake in what happens in education whether we have someone in the system at that time or not."