Former teacher Lovitta Foggo had the final say on public education during a debate in the House of Assembly.

The Government's Chief Whip told MPs that societies which fail to invest in high-quality schooling for children ultimately pay the price by ending up with a generation of unskilled adults.

"They end up being, quite often, social problems," she said, citing the $80,000 annual cost of keeping an inmate at Westgate. "It's a tripling or quadrupling of what we spend on a child in school."

Ms Foggo, the last to speak on Monday afternoon during the Budget debate on education, said critics of the reform of public schools in Bermuda should remember that the Hopkins report "identified a five-year plan for restructuring in our schools system".

She said: "We are now just basically in the second year of that. You will find that even throughout this process we will change and change again."

Ms Foggo revealed that a commissioner of education has been appointed, though this has not yet been announced by the Ministry of Education, and that improved teaching was now a priority.

"One of the ways of doing that is through team teaching," she said. "What better way of learning how to better teach than with your colleagues? It's not always necessary to go overseas to get the type of instruction that's necessary."

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