Young Bermudian students will soon have a centre dedicated to finding them jobs and giving them career advice.

The Bermuda Careers Centre (BCC) is a charitable organisation that has been recently established to provide dynamic career and educational information to help young people.

The Centre was announced in 1998 after Government agreed to provide half of the $300,000 in annual funding, and they are currently searching for an executive director.

The initial focus of the Centre will be recent high school graduates who are seeking to enter the work force, and the centre will draw on the resources of business, education and government.

Ernst and Young Partner, Gil Tucker has been instrumental in creating the Centre but attributed much of the Centre's progress to Consultant Wendy Augustus.

Mr. Tucker said: "The initial thrust generally speaking is to provide Bermudian kids with career opportunities and to make sure that we maximise the number of Bermudians that are capable in the job market.'' The board of the facility is made up of representatives from The Bermuda Electric Light Company Ltd, The Bank of Bermuda, ACE Ltd, Ernst and Young, and from the trade and hospitality sectors.

A steering committee has also been formed with representatives from various public bodies.

"There were various opinions at the board level as to what we should be doing, and we are going to act as a conduit between the business community and the government departments of labour and education, with a particular focus on 400 to 500 students coming out of high school.'' said Mr. Tucker.

He said that Ms. Augustus had researched the total number of kids graduating this year to be between 700 and 800 with over 100 going to prep schools and college.

Others will go to Bermuda College leaving between 400 and 500 kids coming out of high school.

Mr. Tucker said: "We want to kick it off this year and give them the best opportunity of finding jobs. What we want to be able to do is to look at the business community and find out what jobs are out there, what jobs they really need Bermudians for, and what the requirements are for those jobs.'' Mr. Tucker said that surprisingly the Government system has guidance counsellors but does not have career counsellors, and more often than not they are dealing with deviant behaviour and special problems rather than giving career guidance.

Mr. Tucker continued: "So the idea would be for us to let this first group of kids know what is out there and help them to find jobs.'' And he said that over time he wanted the Centre to grow into a think tank to develop other ideas and become the organisation that focuses on the overall debate on education and jobs in Bermuda.