The Shadow Education Minister has called for Terra Nova to be replaced by an international testing benchmark.

Opposition MP Grant Gibbons said he was "not surprised" at the 2008 exam results but that it was time to scrap the Terra Nova system and reach for higher international standards.

This year's results reveal students have made progress in language and reading but are failing in mathematics, while overall public school results lag behind the US average. A Ministry of Education report states: "During the 2008 test administration, no group exceeds the US Median Percentile of 50."

The Terra Nova tests are administered throughout the US, and are based on a student sample representative of that country's population. In Bermuda, students in grades P3-S2 take the tests in reading, language and mathematics, with scores produced for each subject as well as a total overall score.

Results for 2008 reveal reading scores rose among five of the eight student grades, while in language, seven of the eight school years showed progress.

In mathematics however, there were only signs of improvement in three of the eight grades. Dr. Henry Johnson, Consultant Executive Officer for Bermuda's education reform process, said this week that Terra Nova will remain in the nation's schools to gauge how the education system and local students are performing.

But he added the Interim Executive Board will also "explore PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and TIMMS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study)".

He said this was necessary in order to compare the public school system to "the broader international community".

Yesterday, Dr. Gibbons called on Government to implement a system such as PISA as soon as possible. "They should move to a more international standard for benchmarking Bermuda's student performance, such as PISA which compares the results of a lot of different countries," he said. "I feel that would be a much better benchmark because Terra Nova is a US-based test and I don't think the US is the best education system to compare ourselves to. We should be looking at countries such as the UK and Canada, which do well.

"PISA would be a better benchmark because our students are competing against people who come from all over the world into our economy, and the US public school system doesn't rank highly compared to other countries like the UK, Canada, Singapore and Finland.

"So we should look to shift away from Terra Nova towards a more international standard," said Dr. Gibbons.