WILLEMSTAD - The special school boards of Curaçao call on the Dutch government for help to ensure equal quality of education for every child within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. “We are hitting a wall in Curaçao, says Maghalie van der Bunt-George, representative of the VPCO, the umbrella organization of Protestant schools.
The special school boards of Curaçao ask the Netherlands for help in their fight for equal quality of education within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. “This is the responsibility of all governments within the Kingdom. The minister of education is our first point of contact, but not our only one,” says Van de Bunt-George.
Constant financial shortages seem to play a role in the mediocre level of education. Two weeks ago there was a lawsuit against the minister of education. The judge sentenced the minister to pay a sum of money of two million Antillean guilders per school year to the VPCO, until the overall amount spent on education is significantly increased.
The question is to what extent the Netherlands will participate in providing aid. Education is a Curaçao affair and not a kingdom affair as laid down in the Statute. “Our appeal is a moral appeal to the Netherlands. The Charter states that countries within the Kingdom will assist each other if requested to do so. We are now asking for it,” says Van der Bunt-George.
In addition, the country package agreements in COHO, the Caribbean Agency for Reform and Development, are also invoked. “Education is included in the country packages as one of the four themes. So this is on the kingdom's agenda. So let's tackle education right from the start,” argues Van de Bunt-George.
The special school boards of Curaçao also refer to the signed Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This states that countries work together towards inclusiveness and good quality education. “Both countries have signed this treaty,” says Van de Bunt-George. “The child has a right to it.”
“Equal quality of education is different from the same education in the Netherlands,” explains Van der Bunt-George. “The inequality is in what is available for education. Three times as much is invested in the Netherlands than in Curaçao. On our island we work with outdated teaching methods, some of which are twenty years old. In addition, there are too few workbooks, the maintenance of our school buildings is lagging and there are not enough staff.”
“It shouldn't matter what part of the kingdom you were born in,” concludes Van der Bunt-George. Royla Paula-Pierre, representative of the RKCS, the umbrella organization of Catholic schools, agrees: “That is why we drew up a statement stating what is needed in the short and long term, because everyone must be given equal opportunities to get education.”