Wall-sitters will be targeted just as much as high-flyers by new Education Minister Terry Lister to ensure both groups join the workforce.

He said getting people educated to take good jobs in international business was important.

?But even more important is keeping people in the workforce,? said Mr. Lister.

?Too often people come through the school system being turned off by life and resorting to the wall.

?There are a crowd of people not in the workforce aged 18-25 is growing so much.

?One of the things Bermuda has forgotten is that all jobs are of value. The sad thing is that many of the jobs that people are turning away from pay extremely well.

?A tiler can make well over $60,000, $70,000 or $80,000. That?s a lot of money. To convince your child, your son or your daughter that they shouldn?t be interested in tiling is sheer lunacy.?

He said increasing vocational training in schools was a key goal.

Now in his sixth Cabinet appointment in five years Mr. Lister will bring over the National Training Board from Home Affairs because he wants to build on the link between school and work.

?The two need to work together to create that rounded student and that rounded Bermuda.

?Bermuda has to produce doctors, accountants but it also has to produce plumbers, masons and carpenters.?

Mr. Lister has four children plus a foster daughter. All, apart from his son, went through the state school system, while his son started in Government schools but went to Warwick Academy.

One of his daughters now teaches.

?As a parent there are challenges in the system. What we really have to do is get control of the classroom back for the teachers.

?Not spend 15 minutes settling the class but spend five minutes or two minutes. That comes when the students want to learn. The onus is on us as a ministry to make sure they have programmes that capture the imagination.?

Asked about the relaxation of disciplinary measures over recent years Mr. Lister said he would stick with the policy of removing miscreants and putting them into a special school to give them counselling as well as an education.

Teachers have traditionally complained of being buried under a weight of policy edicts from the Ministry which seemed to be changed at a whim.

Mr. Lister said initial meetings with education staff had been on the basis of working out what was possible in the time allotted. ?I said don?t let me give you stuff that you can?t do. Let?s figure out what comes off the table in order to put this on the table.?