WILLEMSTAD - The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports (ESKD) provides education to students without favoring any religious organization or denomination. All religious organizations and denominations are respected and work together to provide education in harmony. The Public School Directorate (DOS), an integral part of the Ministry of ESKD, provides education impartially. Public schools accept all students and do not discriminate based on religion, descent, gender, or creed.
Based on various information on social media, the decision was made to clarify the situation related to the recent theatrical performance in public schools. This play was presented at 6 schools in November of the past year and this year it was presented at 4 schools. The Public School Directorate is aware of these presentations.
The concerned schools informed the parents of this theatrical performance, thus complying with the Public School Directorate's guidelines to provide information to parents when schools organize or participate in any activity. Parents who did not want their children to participate informed the concerned schools, and the decisions of these parents were respected by the schools.
“It is good to inform you that in our curriculum, there is an area of education called 'philosophy of life' (in Dutch, 'levensbeschouwing'), with the main goal of teaching our students about various cultures as part of their personal development. In this way, it brings different thoughts together and allows our students to exchange ideas on an equal basis. In this context, various schools engage students in various creative ways to achieve the goals of 'philosophy of life' education,” says the ministry in a press release.
The theatrical performance that was presented is simply for the students to get to know and exchange ideas about the diverse cultural areas that we live in. Public schools have established procedures to evaluate these types of activities, and in this specific case, officials from DOS evaluated this play and concluded that it is suitable for the concerned age group. This is the reason why six schools presented it last year without any complaints. The information circulating on social media contains a lot of inaccurate details, and those who distribute this information have not seen the play, said the ministry.
Finally, it should be noted that the Government of Curaçao did not subsidize this play. This activity was funded by other international organizations.
“We hope that this clarifies the discussion, and we will continue to work on the development of our students in the correct way, as DOS has been doing. We would also like to inform you that DOS will continue to provide information to the public and parents, and we remain open to any constructive discussions on this topic.”