On Tuesday, grade 3 and 4 HAVO and VWO students of the Milton Peters College paid a visit to the Government Administration Building with their French teacher Michele Allewart to participate in several presentations by Sector Directors and Department Heads and other Government workers on each Sector and about particular departments, including personal accounts of how it is to work for Government.
Valarie Brazier of the Island Secretary office opened the session in the Claude Wathey Legislative Hall and welcomed everyone.
The speakers were as follows: Claudius Buncamper of ROB; drs. Jorien Wuite Director of VSA Public Health, Social Development, and Labor; Quincy Harrigan Head of the Education Department; Luud Hakkens of the Personnel and Organization; Gerard Richardson, Policy worker at the Department of Judicial Affairs, Julisa Frans, Policy worker, Department of Finance, and Rodney Richardson Interim Head of the Government Information Service.
The students were given a short presentation on each Sector of the Government Organization.
As of March 1st 7 new sectors in government have been adjusted to reflect the 7 ministries of Country St. Maarten. Some of the new sectors have already begun preparations to accept the transfer of tasks from the Central Government.
The seven new sectors are: General Affairs, Justice, Public Health, Social Development, and Labor (VSA), Spatial Planning and Infrastructure Management, Tourism, Economic Affairs, Traffic and Telecommunication, Education, and Finance.
They also had the opportunity to ask questions, which many of them did, asking about particular topics to find out more information on a particular topic: i.e. the required academic package in HAVO or VWO that they have to choose to study or get a job in a particular field, their questions were about what were the motivation for studying so long and what study academic subjects they had to choose in order to become a certain profession.
In addition, there were three lucky students who won lunch bags with a t-shirt with government’s logo.