The PLP's start to the Budget debate was yesterday slammed by Shadow Education Minister Tim Smith.

Mr. Smith said: "There was no comprehensive overview or indication to allow an Opposition Member to debate its credibility.

"She produced nothing for us, so I could neither challenge it or support it.'' And he claimed: "Because of the lack of detail, I couldn't ask about performance measurements of the public information system and to what extent were they prepared to involve the business community, parents, and the community in education.'' Mr. Smith was speaking after Premier Jennifer Smith, also Education Minister, started off the marathon two weeks of talk on Government's first-ever financial blueprint.

And Ms Smith insisted she had stuck to PLP initiatives in the short lead-in Budget and left as much time as possible for the UBP to reply.

Ms Smith told MPs that the PLP had made a promise to reduce class sizes, improve safety and security for pupils and staff and "reinforce the important links of education in this community through specially-trained attendance officers.'' She said the Budget allowed for $220,000 to reduce class sizes and added that all Primary One classes would be reduced to a 15:1 pupil/teacher ratio by the start of the next school year, at a cost of $450,000.

And she repeated PLP election and Throne Speech pledges to set up national standards for pre-schools and go for early intervention programmes for special needs children.

Ms Smith added Government intended to "return authority for the classroom to frontline professionals -- the teachers and bring in elected school boards.'' And she said her Government would "assure the accountability of schools'' through independent "league tables.'' Also on the cards is a survey of fire safeguards -- begun before the recent Harrington Sound Primary School blaze -- and she added that a security report on schools prepared by Police is now being analysed by the Ministry.

Ms Smith also said that the Coalition for the Protection of Children would be allocated a total of $40,000 to set up supervision programmes for youngsters suspended for disruptive behaviour.

The Education Ministry is the second-biggest spender -- $85.1 million and an 11.2 percent increase on the previous year's Budget -- after Health and Family Services.

Mr. Smith said: "I was hoping to see how the decision-making process was going to be changed at the Ministry.

"There was no detail and the Budget completely contradicts that in their significant increases in the monies allocated to departmental support.

"I wanted to make sure that money was going to where parents were asking us to put the money.

"Parents want their children to succeed in the 21st century, hence my comments on information technology in schools -- the allocation has been reduced from $950,000 to $750,000.

"I think that's going in completely the wrong direction from the way we're going in our schools.'' Earlier, Ms Smith told the House that Government had decided to concentrate on training the trainers -- teachers -- to make the best use of technology, so more money would have to go to that.

But Mr. Smith said: "The numbers don't support that analysis -- if you have 1,500 computers in the schools and 7,000 students in the system this year, you're not giving many students access to computers.'' Mr. Smith accepted that the PLP only took power last November after another five years of UBP rule -- but he dismissed claims the crisis in the schools system was the fault of the ex-Government.

He said: "I'm surprised they continue to take that tack. Our intent is not to fix the blame, but to fix the problem -- I always stood up in the House and said I was there to fix it.'' Mr. Smith added: "I can't recall any public statement of education other than in the Throne Speech.

"And people want to know what benchmarks are being set so parents can know if Government is living up to them.

"My whole objective during the debate was to encourage Government to disclose as much as they could about education so people can make informed decisions about it and not be afraid of the results.''