The Bermuda public school system will have a ?vastly improved? programme of assessing and documenting student achievement beginning next year, said Education Minister Terry Lister yesterday.

The announcement was made on the heels of the past year?s Terra Nova exams, which showed that pupils? reading, mathematics and language skills have improved somewhat since 1999/2000 ? the first year the Terra Nova test was administered ? but are still below the average of 50 percent.

The Education Department plans to launch a redesigned test that will combine the Terra Nova test items with test items designed to measure student mastery of Bermuda Public Schools curriculum.

Senior Education Department officials report that testing mastery of the local curriculum could be achieved, in part, by some Terra Nova test items.

The initiative would mean that no student could be exempted from the test ? an outcome which would improve the integrity and year-to-year comparability of the results.

Three vendors have responded to the call for a redesigned test, and a decision on the winning proposal will be made shortly and forwarded to Cabinet for their consideration.

Pending completion of this bidding process and Cabinet approval, public school students could be sitting the new exams by next May.

?The changes will better serve the needs of our students, while introducing a more consistent method of measuring performance and improving the integrity of reporting that performance,? said Mr. Lister.

?We are working towards greater accountability for the public education system.? The Minister added: ?We will maintain the ability to compare how well our students are doing relative to their peers in North America.?

Terra Nova tests have been administered since 1999/2000, to provide a measure of student performance comparable to student performance in the United States. Students are also required to take exams which assess how well they are absorbing what is being taught in the classroom.