More than 1,200 students repeated a grade level in public schools in one year, costing Government $8.7 million.

Iowa State University professor William Poston disclosed this in a recently-released unprecedented study of the public school system.

The study -- conducted last year by Mr. Poston and a team of education auditors who reviewed management of the system from 1989 to last September -- also revealed that in two high schools, St. George's Secondary and Sandys Secondary, about 50 percent of the students repeated classes during one school year.

Basing their remarks on a 1993/94 student retention report provided by the Ministry who admitted that such an analysis was not conducted on a regular basis, the auditors disclosed that in that year 1,286 students were retained or kept back at least once.

The bulk of the students, 61 percent, retained were boys.

Also of those 1,286 students, 137 or 11 percent repeated the same class twice and 25 or two percent were kept back more than twice.

This, the report pointed out, cost $8.7 million since an additional $6,000 was spent per student.

The auditors noted that the Education Ministry spent "a considerable amount of funds'' in re-educating students, but there were no guidelines on retention.

"Any programme in the system that costs $8.7 million should have strict accounting measures applied to it,'' they stated.

They also pointed out that current research did not support the practice of retaining students.

Noting that their questions to the Ministry regarding the rationale for retention were not answered because there was no clear policy on retention, they said: "As a part of the document submitted for review, the auditors learned that the decision to retain or not to retain students rests with the building principal and his/her philosophical stance on retention.

"The lack of clear policy on retention allows principals to make decisions that conceivably change from building to building. The probability of a child being retained is closely aligned to the individual philosophy of the building principal of school she or he attends.'' The percentage of "retainees'' or repeaters in primary schools ranged from five percent at Heron Bay and Port Royal to 18 percent at Victor Scott, Dellwood, and Purvis.

At the high school level, the percentage ranged from 11 percent at Warwick Academy (then a Government school) to 52 percent at Sandys Secondary.

"The Ministry has the responsibility for determining a system-wide policy on retention, an issue which begins with children, but has lasting effects into adult life,'' the auditors pointed out.

Education Minister Jerome Dill has refused to comment on retention and other specific issues raised in the audit report.

But Opposition Leader Jennifer Smith told The Royal Gazette : "I'm not surprised that we don't have statistics in terms of retention.

Report: Retention level high "Some people do not have what one would consider basic skills that they should have upon graduating, so you have to question what is the standard.

"If we're going to change a system, let's at least do it right and put in the standards and tell us how we're going to reach them and tell us how we're going to assess how we've reached them.'' But Ms Smith -- who is also the Shadow Education Minister -- refused to blame schools for keeping students back.

"I do not want schools to sell a child short by graduating them without the skills they should have for graduation,'' she said.

"I have to give them credit for taking that stance. It's not always popular (to keep a student back). Parents don't like the retention. Students don't like it, but it is in their best interest. But what would be in their better interest is to teach them in a way that they can best learn.

"Now that we know that children learn in different ways and therefore you must teach them in different ways, rather than making the child the victim of our lack of alternative teaching styles and skills by saying you did not learn this this year so you must stay back, you're suppose to change the way you teach the child.

"The way to ensure that children learn is to teach them in the way that they can best learn. The current system does not offer that. So we must ensure that the new system does.

"But in the interim since we do not have a system that does that, there's no way that I would condemn schools who are doing their best to ensure that children don't leave their facility without the necessary skills.'' Responding to the $8.7 million spent in 1993/94, Ms Smith added: "That's a cost that existed because you had a system that was not teaching children in a way it should have.

"But if you're going to change the system, then you should incorporate the different teaching skills, which Government has said that it will, into the system.'' Executive members of the Association of School Principals are scheduled to discuss the audit report at a meeting next week.