During various recently organized meetings, officers for the ministry of education, culture and science (OCW) a concept manual for the personnel has been discussed with the school boards of Dutch Caribbean to jointly determine which adjustments are necessary.
The concept personnel manual describes the rights and duties of the staff in the education sector in the Caribbean Netherlands. The legal status of teaching staff is a comprehensive matter. Working conditions are laid down in different arrangements. An overview of the most important regulations is set out in the annex to the manual. Those regulations are public and everyone can consult them on the internet (http://wetten.overheid.nl).
The realization of the personnel manual is one of the actions from the education agenda for the Caribbean Netherlands for the years 2017 to 2020. In the education agenda actions are set to further improve the quality of education. It is also the intention to pay attention to a number of pre-conditions, such as in the field of labor conditions. The personnel manual aims to contribute to the proper implementation of the terms of employment agreement. This agreement is established in the Consultation Focused on agreement (OOGO), where the school boards, the unions and the Island Government is represented. The manual specifies the terms and conditions of employment that has to be applied to teaching staff, such as information on salaries, allowances and leave types.
The manual for personnel is intended for teaching staff on Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius that is employed by a Government-funded school for public or private education. With the education personnel is meant the Director, the Deputy Director, the teachers and the non-teaching staff.
The consultation was useful and a lot of questions has been asked: requests for supplement and critical comments. The ministry of education, culture and science will process this in to current version, later this year to come with the final version of the personnel manual. For the completion of the manual among other things the Ministry shall review the extent to which the civil service law applies to the staff of schools for private education (education based on for example a religious vision).