Opposition Leader Jennifer Smith last night poured cold water on Government's plans to have a Cabinet committee "work through'' proposals to improve the education system.

The proposals were included in an unprecedented study of the public schools system from 1989 to last year.

The study -- carried out by a team led by associate professor of educational administration at Iowa State University William Poston -- pointed out a slew of deficiencies, including: System-wide planning was "fragmented and inordinate''; Staff development was "uncoordinated and unfocused on measured teacher needs''; The Ministry's policy was inadequate to ensure quality curriculum control; and School facilities were "inequitable in adequacy, maintenance, and accessibility''.

Topping its 15 recommendations was a call for the Education Ministry to put a comprehensive public and staff participatory process in place.

"We recommended a comprehensive public and staff process for participation because we found that the major stakeholders did not have much input,'' Mr.

Poston told The Royal Gazette .

Yesterday, responding to the report for the first time since its release, Ms Smith said it validated what the Opposition and stakeholders in the school system had been saying for years.

While thanking Education Minister Jerome Dill for giving the public a document "which so carefully details those areas that for years Bermudians have been expressing concerns about'', Ms Smith -- also the Shadow Education Minister -- said she did opposed setting up a Cabinet committee to implement the proposals.

Education committee opposed "In fact, one of their (auditors) first recommendations was to develop a participatory decision-making process for improving the system,'' she said.

"To put it in the hands of a Cabinet committee when it's purely education, and they made it clear that decision-making should involve parents, people from the community, teachers as well as those inside the Ministry, is not the best way to go.'' Ms Smith also said Government had not stated whether it would implement the recommendations.

Releasing the report earlier this month, Mr. Dill told the press it was clear that the Ministry "must now take steps to bring all 15 of the audit team's major recommendations into effect''.

"Some of the recommendations concern things not entirely within the Ministry's control,'' he said. "I think the best way forward is for a Cabinet committee to prioritise and work through the recommendations with the Ministry.'' But Ms Smith said it took Government more than a year to set up a Cabinet committee to look into a recommendation, from the Blow the Whistle on Violence conference, on schools violence.

"It took Government until March 11 of this year to set up a Cabinet committee on violence in Government schools, which was one of the recommendations from that conference,'' she said.

"Since that time that committee has not met. Their first meeting has been scheduled for June 19. They're setting up a Cabinet committee, not to oversee the implementation, but to find how the recommendations should be done when they are clear cut.

"There are recommendations on the issue contained in the Report on Child Abuse, there are recommendations that were contained in the Education Planning Team report. And if these recommendations are, as Government has said, a reiteration of recommendations made in the EPT report almost a decade ago, then the question to be asked is when, if ever, are they going to be carried out?'' If any committee needed to be set up, Ms Smith added, it should be a committee to assess whether the recommendations had been carried out in the right manner, not to decide if Government were going to implement them.

"Having the audit is not the same as doing what the audit recommends, that is making positive change in the system,'' she said. "And if implementing the recommendations is dependent upon Government's response to the audit or any kind of debate in the House, then that means prolonging it even further.'' If Government agreed with the audit report recommendations, Ms Smith said, it could have the Education Ministry carry them out on a charge from the Minister.