Shadow Education Minister Grant Gibbons urged Government to release the full results of proficiency tests.

On Friday Dame Jennifer Smith outlined the results of several exams public school students sat, but Dr. Gibbons said the full results should have been released instead of the “selective data”.

Dame Jennifer said only 22.9 percent of Senior 1 and 2 students at public schools demonstrated proficiency in maths and 76 percent were proficient in English based on the Bermuda Criterion-Referenced Test.

She said: “The Bermuda Criterion-Referenced Test scores indicate a mathematics concern at the middle and senior levels.”

The TerraNova tests were also “less heartening” at the senior school level than they were in the primary and middle school levels. No year reported a score at or above the mid-point [against their US peer group],” she said.

When it came to GCSEs, Government schools had an 80 percent pass rate; 214 of the 266 examinations receiving an grade between A - C.

Yesterday Dr. Gibbons said: “I am concerned that Minister Smith has not released the complete data tables for the Terra Nova and other exam results as has been the practice with former Ministers.

This lack of transparency is unacceptable and will only raise suspicions that the public is being given edited or selective data and not a full picture of the various exam results.

“This is why we have called for an independent Education Standards Board an educational equivalent to the Auditor General that would not come under the control of the Ministry of Education and whose function is to analyze and then release education results in a timely way to ensure that the information is accurate, fair and consistent in its reporting.

“Parents in many other countries with first class education systems depend on independent education standards boards to give them unbiased results.

It makes sense that those who are responsible for improving education results should not be the ones to judge whether that improvement has actually taken place.”

Dr. Gibbons added that the BCRT results were “discouraging” at the middle school level and “appalling” at the senior school level. He also questioned how the mathematical proficiency level could be so low in S1 and S2 while the schools had high graduation rates.

“Basic mathematics proficiency is a key skill for most vocational and professional jobs and deficiencies in this area will seriously limit our children's potential opportunities and future success,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the very low mathematics proficiency rate in S1 and S2 students begs the question of how meaningful the GPA averages and the 98 percent and 99 percent graduation rates are for the graduating seniors.

“It's also clear that we still have some distance to go before we reach the 90 percent proficiency rate set in the Education Ministry's Blueprint Strategic Plan 2010-2015 for all levels of students. These results underscore the importance of getting on with the implementation of the Hopkins recommendation with renewed urgency.”

Dr. Gibbons added that it was encouraging to see the drop out rate at Government senior schools had fallen.

This year 86 percent of students completed their education from S1 to S4 at Cedarbridge and graduated. Last year the figure was 78 percent. At Berkeley, using S1 as the denominator again, 79 percent graduated compared to 75 percent last year.

“It's good news that the educators at both CedarBridge and Berkeley have been able keep more students in school and in a position to graduate,” he said.