Across Bermuda you see the community tightening its belt. Workers are being laid off. Mortagages are going into default. Rents and house prices are sagging. Businesses are merging or just liquidating. Even the private schools are starting to “downsize”. The feelgood way to explain all of this is to blame it on the nebulous global [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Education'
This May Explain Something
November 26th, 2010 · Comments Off · Education
No wonder Bermuda’s budgets don’t add up!! Only 22.96% of our senior school students “demonstrate proficiency in Mathematics” using the Bermuda Criterion–Referenced Test … yet we have a 99% graduation rate. Proficiency is a grade of greater than 60%. In addition, using the international Terra Nova exams, our senior school students tested below the mid-point [...]
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Unemployables
November 26th, 2010 · Comments Off · Bermuda Politics, Education
There is a tendency here to be optimistic about the failings of the Bermudian public school system … “oh it can’t be all that bad.” And then every now again you get a quote like this burst of honesty: The Collector of Customs said that there had been 236 applicants for 12 entry level vacancies, [...]
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Department of Illiteracy
April 1st, 2010 · Comments Off · Education
The last recruitment drive by Bermuda Fire Service attracted 83 applicants — but just three passed the entrance tests and only two accepted the job. Chief fire officer Vincent Hollinsid said of applicants: “They are failing because of the academics, they are failing because of the medical exams, they are failing because of a number [...]
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Education System, Still Fumbling
January 18th, 2010 · Comments Off · Education
The Bermuda Government loves to commission top dollar reports from international experts …. and then to ignore them. Bermuda First, which was heralded as a bipartisan effort to gain the input from the business community, quickly disappeared without a trace. Even more worrisome is the Hopkins Report on improving education which has been sitting on [...]
Tags:Hopkins Report
Democracy Needs Education
November 4th, 2009 · Comments Off · Education
A reader points out that – while we need to reform our education for the practical reason that children in our community deserve it, and our country needs those children to be able to achieve and earn – we also need better education to protect our democracy. The New York Times reports that Basically no [...]
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Mincy Report
November 3rd, 2009 · Comments Off · Bermuda Politics, Education
The long-awaited report by Ronald Mincy of Columbia University has been released. A Study of Employment, Earnings, and Educational Gaps between Young Black Bermudian Males and their Same-Age Peers (pdf, 1 Mb) At 233 pages, it is worth skimming, and then reading again properly. This subject tends to be clouded by staccato emotion and political [...]
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Education
October 21st, 2009 · Comments Off · Education
The muddle over Bermuda’s poor quality of public education continues unabated. The NYT underlines why education is important: A Washington lawyer friend recently told me about layoffs at his firm. I asked him who was getting axed. He said it was interesting: lawyers who were used to just showing up and having work handed to [...]
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When Worlds Collide
June 2nd, 2009 · Comments Off · Bermuda Politics, Education
I guess times have changed since I was a young ‘un. The thought that there would be “gang warfare” at the prom for the costly private BHS for girls at the costly private RBYC just boggles the mind. Bermuda is small – and the swishy crowd can’t feel isolated from the discontent, violence, and uselessness [...]
Saying Thank You
January 29th, 2009 · Comments Off · Education
Before we get too excited about the Premier being named as a Caribbean Illuminati at a fundraiser held by the American Foundation for the University of the West Indies (AFUWI), Bermudians should note that this is a Big Thank You for Dr. Brown’s kind offer for Bermuda to subsidize UWI. Under the terms of the [...]
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