From The Daily Herald St. Maarten

SABA/ST. EUSTATIUS–Last week, board members and directors of the educational institutes of the Caribbean Netherlands visited The Hague. The purpose of their visit was to speak with various policy advisers about the further improvement of the quality of education in Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba. Minister of Primary and Secondary Education and Media Arie Slob also joined the talks.
The meeting took place within the framework of the Second Education Agenda for the Caribbean Netherlands 2017-2020 and the necessary steps to be taken to achieve the goals set in the Agenda.

“The first Education Agenda from 2011 was ambitious,” said former director of Foundation Public Education Bonaire Eveliene Coenen. “But we did manage. Our teams, the employees of the schools, have worked very hard in recent years, making a real effort and initiated the development to achieve the goals. And we succeeded. In fact, now with the Second Agenda everyone is still ready for it and everyone goes along with the developments by fully dedicating themselves every day.”

According to Coenen, the Education Agenda has proven to be a very good instrument to initiate development. “Other ministries should take an example. It creates a lot of clarity for all parties. I am proud of the efforts of teaching staff in the Caribbean Netherlands who have also implemented the first Education Agenda in a short period of time.”

Administrators and school leaders discussed in small groups last week Tuesday with civil servants of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science OCW about important themes in the implementation of the Second Education Agenda and the quality improvement that is deemed crucial in the curriculum, testing and supervision, educational support, training, recruitment, selection and staff training, career transfer, connection with the labour market and the introduction of the Caribbean Examination Council system in St. Eustatius and Saba.

“These discussions have shown our policy colleagues what are the important topics in the Caribbean Netherlands and what the bottlenecks are. For some, there was a lot of new information. They will now have to see what the information means for the policies they make,” OCW policy adviser Jeroen Arts said: The delegation from the Caribbean Netherlands were also guests at PO Council for primary education for an entire study week with school visits, master classes and workshops. The visit ended Friday with participation in the annual PO Council conference. The Council represents the common interests of school boards in primary education, special primary education and (secondary) special education.

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