Education, who needs one?

I was invited to the graduation of the International School of Aruba next week, and I am sure my eyes will be welling with tears when I see our graduate receiving her diploma. I always cry at graduations. They are milestones. They are the reward for many sacrifices, of parents and students, and they are moments of pure joy and elation, celebrating a great achievement, mixed with anxiety and uncertainty, about the future, and what’s next.

I am already looking forward to that emotional roller coaster.

Education. That’s today’s topic.

One of my friends, a key player in the SKOA school system, Stichting Katholiek Onderwijs Aruba, the network of Catholic schools here, with 48 of them from kindergarten through high school recently poured his heart out, how broke the system is and how difficult to navigate.

Apparently, the air-conditioning in classrooms has been turned off due to lack of funds. The government has not come forth with the money for the electric bills, and the parents refused to pay for it. Kids have no books, period. And while some teachers find it hard to proceed without, some appreciate the freedom it allows, and create their own school materials.

The famous sentence of July 8th last year was NOT a positive development. It created a lot of convenient confusion, when the court of first instance ruled, that the school couldn’t RAISE fees without a “just” cause. Some parents viewed the verdict as an excuse to stop paying all together. THEY DID NOT EVEN PAY THE CUSTOMARY ANNUAL AWG 75. Can you imagine???

True, last year SKOA attempted to raise the ridiculously low amount from Awg 75 to Awg 125. Then a group headed by an active politician that does not even have children in a SKOA schools, took SKOA to court.

How is that possible that parents view an increase from Awg 75 to Awg 125, mind you, a one time annual fee, as TOO MUCH??

How is it possible that a politician uses a school system as a political vehicle and an instrument for self-promotion?

The judge’s verdict was that SKOA could not raise the school fee without “just cause,” and that put the increase on hold, until the “bodem” procedure was heard. What ensued was that parents did not pay. They did not even pay the original Awg 75 fee.

Just for comparison, parents with children at Colegio Arubano pay anywhere from Awg 800 to Awg 1,500 a year for tuition and books. The Schakel and the International School tuitions are much higher.

It is a fact that we pay very high personal taxes, up to 58.95%, the highest income tax rates in the world, and the government is supposed to provide us with free education, but the measly amount of Awg 125 per annum, surely every parent can cough that amount up to help pay the high costs of utilities here.

Anyway, the schools are broke, the money has not been collected last year and this year, and will probably not be collected next year, the issue is hanging in indecision, and the SKOA brass is ducking the confrontation, investigation this or the other. I hear some key people were sent on long term “vacations,” until the dust settles, but basically SKOA’s management is dragging its heels, and the system is quagmired.

 

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May 25, 2016
Rona Coster