The future of Bermuda rests on the success of its school system, says a leading Island educator.

And while talk of new facilities, new technologies, hiring and testing of teachers, and curriculum continues to dominate the headlines, Dr. Janet Kemp told the luncheon meeting of the Hamilton Lions Club, missing from the dialogue is talk of who will monitor the education system or carry out the necessary changes once the reforms are in place.

Closing out a series of talks to mark Education Month, Dr. Kemp, Director of The Reading Clinic, said hope is not enough to see current education reforms through.

"We have to work to make it work,'' she told the Lions. And pivotal to success is "a partnership of accountability'' encompassing all stakeholders in the education field.

Accountability to provide a "suitable education'' to public school students and their parents is explicit in the Education Act, said Dr. Kemp; but "the immediate task confronting us is to define what suitable means (or how) we can translate this aim into measurable signs of achievement.'' Accountability must also be extended to the private school system, a system embracing nearly 40 percent of all secondary students on the Island, as well as the Bermuda College which must be accountable for responding to the training needs of the community, said Dr. Kemp.

Within the schools teachers must also be accountable for their performance, she added: "Taking into consideration the many problems children bring to the classroom, how can we nevertheless hold teachers accountable for excellent instruction.

When teachers clearly don't have the skills or the interpersonal style to help children improve, what do we do? How many `losing kids' will we allow before an incompetent teacher is out? "In a community the size of Bermuda and with so few options for career moves, these are tough questions. There are personal loyalties, Bermudianisation, and other factors that sometimes make it extremely difficult to truly hold people accountable. I would argue, though, that in education we can't afford poor teachers, nor can we afford mediocre teachers...,'' she said.

The partnership of accountability must also extend beyond parents and teachers to embrace the community as whole. The press, politicians, and business all play a role, as do private organisations such as the Lions, she pointed out.

Success, said Dr. Kemp, "depends not only on how well we plan and create the new reformed (education) system, but perhaps more importantly on how we evolve, how we establish standards against which to measure our success, how we acknowledge our weaknesses, and how we act to correct them.'' EDUCATION ED