Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sports Melissa Gumbs once again confirmed (see Friday/Saturday edition) that annual parental contributions requested by subsidised school boards should be voluntary. Textbooks or report cards may not be withheld due to non-payment.
This applies to Foundation for Protestant Christian Education, “Stichting Voorgezet Onderwijs Bovenwindse Eilanden” (SVOBE), the National Institute for Professional Advancement (NIPA), Foundation Catholic Education St. Maarten, Charlotte Brookson Academy for the Performing Arts Foundation, Foundation Methodist Agogic Centre (MAC), Foundation for Academic and Vocational Education (FAVE) and the St. Maarten Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) Foundation. They often see the fees as a necessity to cover important matters that enhance the learning experience.
Together, these school boards receive 168.9 million Caribbean guilders per year in taxpayer funding. While that may seem like an awful lot of money at first glance, the picture changes a bit when noting the amounts each actually get.
One might argue that eight different subsidised school boards -in addition to public schools- is a bit much for such a relatively small country. However, this allows for a varied offer in terms of programmes that apparently suit the community’s ethnic and cultural diversity.
A story published in the same newspaper stated that a group calling themselves “Parents and Residents of St. Maarten” had written the minister and MAC principal about the need for teacher assistants in overcrowded classrooms, regulating teachers’ paid afternoon classes, improving student safety and school conditions, and strengthening accountability at the school. The reality is that depending on public means alone could make attaining some of these goals even harder in practice.
To avoid undesirable situations, parental contributions should be clearly discussed up front when people register their children, including options for those who can’t afford them. Perhaps the latter could even receive social assistance for this purpose from government in individual cases justifying such.
Fact is that the fees still serve an important function in the island’s present private education system. Doing without them would likely make providing more than the bare minimum in educational activities difficult at best.
