WILLEMSTAD - The special education on Curacao is about to crash as a result of plans for a substantial budget cut at a time when corona measures are also necessary.
A leaked cutback proposal from the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport (OWCS) states that special education must cut costs by 18 percent, where public education will receive a budget cut of a few percent.
School boards of special education on Curacao are sounding the alarm and writing a pressing letter to get the budget cuts off the table. Children on Curacao must not fall victim to the corona measures.
No electricity and water at school
The leaked plans have major consequences for the continued existence of special education, says Maghalie van der Bunt-George. She is director of the Association of Protestant Christian Education (VPCO) on Curacao and says that the proposed cutback of 18 percent is significantly greater than the total budget for the supply costs.
“In practice, completely or partially scrapping these costs would mean that there is no more money for electricity, water, cleaning and school materials. Because of the corona measures, we cannot of course cut back on cleaning school buildings, which must be cleaned every day. And also, not on water and electricity.”
If the supply costs are not cut, school boards cannot avoid cutting staff costs. This has direct consequences for the students in the classroom. Van der Bunt: “For primary education in Curacao, this means saying goodbye to 150 teachers. And that is in addition to the 12.5 percent that teachers also must hand in on their salary because of the corona crisis.
One consequence may be that the classes must be enlarged to 40 children per class. Another consequence may be that the student care that is now minimal must be scrapped. This means that the handful of social workers, internal counselors and remedial teachers will have to be dismissed. Precisely now that the social problems on our island are enormous, student care should be scaled up rather than broken down.”
“If education is identified as the number one priority by the government, then this must be propagated precisely now, and all other ministries must also recognize this priority. Now the government is basically saying that education cannot be financed.
