Teachers' leader Mike Charles last night called on Education Minister Randy Horton to provide a detailed timetable for the reform of public schools.

Mr. Charles, general secretary of Bermuda Union of Teachers (BUT), said the Minister's claim on Tuesday that a "comprehensive strategic plan" was being put in place rang hollow when there was only a week-and-a-half of the school term left to go before the summer break.

"Nobody knows what to look forward to in September," he told The Royal Gazette. "How are teachers supposed to plan? When someone talks about a strategic plan you expect to see timelines, dates, when it's going to be done, how it's going to be done.

"So far there is nothing on paper that is concrete. It either shows they are not ready or they don't want to be held accountable."

The highly critical Hopkins report on public schools, published more than a year ago, included a raft of recommendations for improving education.

But the process of implementing them has been accompanied by continuing clashes between the Ministry of Education and the BUT.

The latest war of words was sparked by a full-page newspaper advert last week in which the union claimed teachers were being left out of the reform process.

Mr. Horton hit back by alleging that teachers had failed to make any "direct recommendations" for improvement but that was refuted by Mr. Charles, who produced a list of questions and concerns sent to the Minister last month.

Mr. Charles said last night that the Minister needed to stop giving "vague" answers. He also criticised the decision to bring 11 experts here to audit the curriculum at a time when little real work is going on in the classroom.

"They must have known that school is out at this time of year," he said. "It just shows something is lacking at that [Ministry] level."

Myron Piper, chairman and founder of Bermuda Educational Parents' Association (BEPA), said yesterday that teachers were asking good questions which merited proper responses.

"They want decisive, deliberate answers to their questions, not statements that gloss over the issues," he said. "I think they have a valid gripe."

Mr. Piper added that teachers were "absolutely" justified in feeling they had been excluded from the reform process and claimed senior officers at the Ministry were to blame for blocking communication between the rank and file and those overseeing the changes.

He said nothing would change until the top tier of administration at the Ministry was removed, adding that the radical overhaul of the Ministry called for by Professor David Hopkins had not happened.

Mr. Horton said on Tuesday that every stakeholder in education was "important and...instrumental in the overall implementation process".

He pointed out that a series of presentations on progress had recently been made to the unions, Ministry staff, principals, faculty, staff and the public.