This week Director General of Education, Mr Renk Roborgh, paid a working visit to the Island Territory of Saba. After his first meeting with the Executive Council, he made his way to a meeting with the new Head of Department of Education, Mr Hemmie van Xanten. Later on, Roborgh also met with representatives from both school boards of the Saba Comprehensive School and Sacred Heart School.
Several discussions were brought forward, one of them being the reports that were issued by the Dutch inspectors who visited in October 2008. There was also discussion of the reports from the Dutch Ministry of housing as well as a report on the Educational Infrastructure of the Island.
One of the main topics covered was the monies that were allocated to the BES Islands for 2009/2010 and how this will be further allocated to the schools.
During the meetings it was mentioned that Commissioner of Education, Chris Johnson, would lead a delegation to Holland in mid-march to have 3-days worth of meetings with the Dutch Ministry of Education, along with the other BES representatives.
A solid agreement that come out of the meeting was that four short-term needs would be proposed before mid-march and presented to the Ministry by the Saban delegation. These short-term needs include: Materials for SHS, Materials for SCS, Recruitment packages for teachers, and new school busses.
Commissioner Johnson was happy to see the interaction between the school boards and the Ministry. The open nature of the Dutch officials is extremely positive and he can see that the ministry is very interested in relying heavily on local input rather than just enforcing a particular education system.
Source: Saba Government Information Services – gis@sabagov.com