The actions that have been taken by the CedarBridge Academy teaching staff have been reactionary. The present education system is mired in unprecedented levels of dysfunction that have impacted academia system-wide. The actions of the teaching staff is a result of when things get to a breaking point.

Our students’ education is akin to wanting to fix the fanciest of sports cars, but having the inexplicable excuse of not getting the important parts correct. So, ultimately, the fancy car/system runs ineffectively. Never reaching its full potential. Never producing or giving consistent quality. Never having persons that are committed and directly responsible to fix it.

So the bigger issue is the systemic prevalence that we have that ruins generations or short-changes a child’s ambition to be better or even excellent by the time they leave public school. Or, far worse, we ultimately create a form of educational apartheid. Considering that, we take the best few and make the best of them — and leave the rest.

Previous generations are still coming to terms with the Bermuda Technical Institute and Howard Academy being decommissioned. Imagine what our nation could have continued to produce. Whatever the narrative was then, the premise is still the same today. What could work doesn’t work and those responsible for making it work on the front line are treading water, spinning their wheels — both euphemisms for insanity.

The culprit of education’s present demise is the Education Reform Unit. This has become the third wheel in education alongside the ministry and the department. The funding for the ERU is $5.6 million. The money is for structural organisation and creating a nurturing environment that caters to students’ diverse needs and talents.

This has not trickled down yet via the ERU. Meanwhile, the day-to-day running of the school system that requires substitutes, teachers, equipment, etc, has no means to meet the immediate needs of students.

When this odyssey started back in 2017, as Learning First, it was due to be completed in 2022 (Plan 2022). At its inception, the premise for reform then was based on eliminating middle schools because that system was deemed to be contributing to gang culture. However, present day what is the ERU’s actual agenda? What is it actually trying to accomplish? What data is being kept that holds it accountable regarding targets and meeting goals? What has been delivered to date?

At this juncture, we are all culpable and complicit in the promise of the fancy car not working. We have been tolerant and civil at the expense of our children. We knew needs were not being met. We knew we were working with far less and asked to perform magic.

Perhaps the contract of the Innovative Unit consultants, who are the entity responsible for the ERU, needs to be scrutinised — they receive $1.8 million a year. Enrolment is just above 4,000. School enrolment in 2017 was 4,894 to be exact, according to the education minister’s February 2018 report. At this rate, we may have fewer than 3,000 students if allow let to continue.

Is our educational product sustainable? Is it catering to and capturing all? Have the exceptional and special needs students been considered in any plan?

The Bermuda school system deserves the best. There will be new technologies and new innovations, and even new paradigms, by the projected time of completion. At least four more years.

We need an oversight committee to determine what is working and what the long-term benefits to our country will be. We need this now.

• Dwight Jackson has declared as an independent candidate for Smith’s West (Constituency 9) in the next General Election