Violence and disruption in the classroom have been blamed for the number of teachers who are leaving the public education system and opting for the private sector.

In the House of Assembly on Friday, Shadow Education Minister Tim Smith said his concern was growing over the high turnover of staff at public schools and said Government should act now to prevent it reaching crisis point.

He said he had received reports that more and more teachers were physically and mentally exhausted and were opting out of the public system to take up teaching jobs elsewhere, or even to start their own home schools.

He said: "I am sure there are a number of reasons why teachers are leaving the profession, but the reasons coming to me revolve around these two principal areas, discipline issues and accountability.

"This House has heard the stories: teachers being spat upon, security officers being stabbed, verbal abuse by some students, bullying in the quadrangle, some students coming to school with knives, some students with drugs.

"But a measure of success - or failure - of any workplace is turnover, and our teachers continue to leave the profession at an alarming rate."

Mr. Smith asked the Minister:

How many teachers had tendered their resignations this year?

How many are not having their contracts renewed this September?

Why are teachers voluntarily leaving.

How many resignations were preventable?

How many teachers hired in the last three years were still in public education.

Mr. Smith added: "I am not convinced that we are doing enough. I am not convinced that Government is doing enough to empower teachers.

"Our teachers are demonstrating how empowered they are by walking; that is, walking away."

And he said a number of teachers were walking away because they were frustrated by the system. On Friday, Education and Development Minister Paula Cox announced that a new location had been found for The Education Centre (TEC), which provides an alternative for those students who have behavioural problems or who do not fit into the large, mainstream system.

TEC is currently held in the Salvation Army church hall and provides for only a handful of students.

However, Ms Cox said she and the Ministry of Works and Engineering had worked hard to find a site for TEC, which would hold a greater number of students.

She would not reveal the location, but said the site was going through the planning approval stages. But on Friday, Mr. Smith suggested the new site for TEC was too little too late, and said Government had given no commitment to open in time for the start of the new term in September.

While he said he believed in an alternative facility for disruptive students, he was concerned about the number of students who had been lost in the meantime because TEC had had insufficient places.

Ms Cox responded to the concerns by saying that she too and her Ministry were eager to entice teachers into the profession, as well as encourage them to say.

She said Government had already worked with the Bermuda Union of Teachers and the Association of School Principals to make the package more attractive for teachers.

And the Minister said a statement she read earlier in the day made it clear that well-developed plans were in place for steering Bermuda's education system.

Ms Cox also said the graduation of 21 primary teachers from newly established training programme with Wheelock College boded well for the future of the profession and that it was heartening to see the level of "eagerness and enthusiasm about the job" among the graduates.

Ms Cox said her Ministry had taken a "collaborative approach" with both teachers and students and she felt confidence that this approach was working.

"I am left with no doubt about the enthusiasm of teachers to do what they do best," she said.

While it was unfortunate to see some teachers leaving the profession, Ms Cox said that was often the reality of the Bermuda market. "In any job, there is going to be a lot of moving about," Ms Cox said.

Opposition Whip Maxwell Burgess said Government had to make sure public education served Bermuda's children well, so they were able to take the best local jobs.

And he said he had spoken to teachers who complained of the stresses of their work, and said many had to spend 50 percent of their time on discipline issues.

But former principal and Government backbencher Dale Butler said he was under the impression that once the Minister had responded to comments made by the Opposition, there was no need for anyone else to speak.

And he said he believed the Ministry was heading in the right direction under Ms Cox's leadership.

He said: "We have heard two sermons today from Tim Smith and Maxwell Burgess and although I love their passion, I did not hear any solutions. There were no solutions when they were in Government and we don't hear any solutions now.

"Our Minister is getting things done. It's as simple as that. It concerns me when we hear blanket statements that public education is failing our students."

And he said many parents did not have the choice to home or privately educate their children, and those kinds of comments did not help those parents who were doing the best they could.

He added: "Yes, our system needs radical reform."

But he said many problems lay in parenting, and many children went home to only three word sentences from them their parents.

He said if children did not hear good use of vocabulary and language at home, they would not have it themselves at school.

And he said how could teachers be accountable when students were going to school without breakfast, coming from abusive homes, or getting no direction on discipline from parents.

Mr. Butler said he believed Bermuda needed to get back to basics of reading, writing, spelling and times tables, which it was now doing.

However, he said many of the problems stemmed from the UBP reign, and said the Government then had given little resources to the problems.

The backbencher said he believed some of teachers left the profession because they were not up to the job and had been insufficiently trained at poor overseas colleges.

Others, he said, needed to be motivated all the time, but he believed the best motivation was good results from students.

He said: "Yes there are issues in public education, and yes we are trying to the best of our ability to address them."