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A14 LOCAL
Thursday 23 January 2020

Aruban Education Under Attack?

tendance, access to drink-
ing water and electric-
ity, literacy rate, access to
teachers and so on. How-
ever, when it comes to
indicators conditional on
innovation and digitaliza-
tion, Aruba still has room to
learn and grow. The “Plan
Educacional National”
(PEN) rapport highlights the
importance of aligning the
already behind educa-
tion system to the “Future
of Work” mindset. With the
loss of certain jobs and skills,
newer and improved ones
emerge and that is where
we should work on. Ac-
cording to the PEN (2019)
“skills that are considered
important are creativity
and imagination, techno-
logical knowledge, 21st
century skills, coding, en-
trepreneurial mindset and
persistence”. The SDGs are
well represented by these
ideals, considering the im-
pact of education on in-
clusive innovation, creativ-
ity, technological change,
and socio-economic de-
velopment.

ORANJESTAD — When I think about education, I can’t help but reflect on my childhood. Bearing all the excite- Education and Employ-
ment on the first school day and the anticipation of finding out who my teacher was going to be. Walking into the ment
beautifully decorated classroom filled with quotes like; “Education is the passport for the future” or “Better to have In April 2019, The Minister
tried and failed than to have never tried at all” seem like the perfect setting for success. However, now that we are of Finance, Economy &
in the 21st century, how much have we evolved? Are we teaching our students the right skills? Are we providing Culture presented the Eco-
good quality education? Is the Aruban education system inclusive for all students? nomic Policy for 2019-2021.
In this report the Minister in-
From the title of today’s column, we can pinpoint that “The Goal of the Month” for January is Sustainable Devel- troduced the six economic
opment Goal (SDG) 4 which represents good quality education. This month the entire island was disappointed pillars for the purpose of
to learn that an elementary school was vandalized, resulting in major loss for the school due to a fire outburst. diversifying Aruba’s econ-
Interestingly, it was exactly the school that was chosen by the Aruban Government as an innovative pilot school. omy. These six pillars consist
This school received brand new digital boards to increase the level of education within the classroom. However, out of the: tourism industry;
merely at the beginning of 2020, it seems as if the Aruban education system is under attack. knowledge economy; ag-
riculture; logistics; circular
Data shows that Aruba like many other island states have made tremendous advancements towards proving economy; and creative
good education, but is still struggling to catch up with global demands and trends. Why do you think this is the industries. In the words by
case? It was not too long ago that teachers united to demand the government to pay more attention to basic Laozi “give a man a fish
needs such as air conditioning, infrastructure, school materials, school security, and safety. Besides all these ob- and he will eat for a day.
stacles, education remains a public good and is a vital component for sustainable human and economic devel- Teach a man to fish and
opment of a country. he will eat for a lifetime”.
The essence in this saying
Aruban Education and the SDGs is that education is neces-
Since the emergence of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, a baseline measurement of all the 17 goals sary for sustainability to oc-
was conducted in 2018 by the Aruba SDG indicator working group together with the support from United Nations cur.
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Specifically, with regards to education, the
report summarizes that Aruba scores well above average on indicators such as; student participation, female at- Continued on Page 15