An Opposition senator has accused some parents of failing to take an active role in their children's education.

And Opposition Senate leader Maxwell Burgess said parents must fulfil their role if the public education system is to improve.

During the education budget debate in the Senate yesterday, Sen. Burgess said his comments would not make him popular but he did not seek popularity.

"I'm in the sunset of my career and if I called it like it was in the early days then....

"The abolition of parental responsibility is what's wrong with public education. We have to start telling truths or we're going to lose another generation.

"I'm not having it anymore. I'm not having it anymore because it's not right,'' he said.

Sen. Burgess said he was not addressing the parents who do their jobs such as attending parent-teacher meetings and volunteering.

"But I want that parent to say how many other parents they pass going out of the school hall,'' he said.

Sen. Burgess said one of the differences between public and private school was the dedication of the parent.

Because private school education is seen as an investment, the parents are "knocking on the door'' to find out what's going on, he said.

"Private school kids' parents work too. Don't give me that `I work -- I can't do it',''.

Sen. Burgess said Government Senator Calvin Smith had succeeded, in part, because he recognised he had an obligation to the community, beyond his immediate family.

"Everyone expected him to succeed. If he failed, he didn't just fail his mom and dad, he failed the entire community,'' he said.

"Teachers are scrambling to get a half-an-hour of teaching out of a one-and-a-half-hour class,'' he said.

Sen. Burgess told a story of a former teacher who ran a very strict classroom.

"And this business of telling your mother to tell (the teacher) she better not touch you again? "That parent found time to go out there and talk to the teacher then, you bet,'' he said.

But Sen. Burgess retracted his verbal assault on parents and said: "This is not a beat-up on parents -- it's a call to reality.'' Opposition Senator Mark Pettingill called for Government to stop spending money on cars, ferries and roads -- and spend the money on education.

He said there are no critics when money is diverted to education.

He said the Cabinet Ministers could ride mountain bikes, "rather than giving them Rovers, we take that money and put it into education''.

"The ferry, pull it across on a rope and let's get those computers,'' he said.

But Government Senator Col. David Burch, defended Government spending and said feedback "justified'' Government decisions.

"I believe we are getting it right. I would rather spend the money at the beginning of this rather than at the other end.'' The "other end'' was the $50,000 price tag for housing a prisoner, said Sen.

Burch.

Parents are failing youth Sen. Smith said colonialism stopped the development of education but promoted consumerism in the Colonies.

He said a proper education leads to the transcendence from racism and segregation to developing a new industry in Bermuda.

"Education is one way of changing behaviour. For instance, you have to study math to be an actuary,'' he said.

"Being black or being white is not going to help you be an actuary. When those big banks and insurance companies come through here, they really don't care what you look like -- they want to know what you can do.'' He said education will make a person "civilised'' and give people a "feel for ideas''.

Sen. Smith said: "Bermuda is in a position to produce a school system second to none and it also has the administration professionals and Government to do so.''