Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Culture (ECYS) Rodolphe Samuel was scheduled to be in Parliament this afternoon to continue his meeting with the ECYS Committee. It concerns a review of plans and/or initiatives regarding the development and implementation of a comprehensive St. Maarten history course/programme in secondary schools’ curricula plus an update from the ministry on any existing and potential textbooks to facilitate such.
Many will agree that learning about one’s own country and community in a structured manner is something sorely lacking at most schools. The prevailing organised educational systems are based on those of others, including the Netherlands and Caribbean Examination Council CXC, partly for practical reasons having to with economy of scale.
Not that efforts in this area were never made. For example, “maatschappijleer” (civics) and “staatsinrichting” (political science) have been offered at MAVO, HAVO and VWO level in the Dutch Caribbean on different occasions, but consistency as well as enough adequate local content remained a problem.
The discussion on textbooks is therefore very relevant. Having standards and some degree of uniformity in teaching the proposed subject from the start seems important, also to give it the desired respect and recognition.
Interestingly, Methodist Agogic Center-Comprehensive Secondary Education (MAC-CSE) students are getting “History and Geography of St. Maarten” lessons for the first time this year, it was announced early this month. Government and other school boards would do well to find out more and thus avoid needlessly reinventing the wheel, as well as possibly share resources, because there is strength in numbers.
The current experience can serve to compare notes and even as a useful test case.
