On December 11, 12, 13, and 14, 2022, a delegation from the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia & Santa Catalina, Colombia visited our island. This delegation consisted of the Governor of the islands (Everth Hawkins Sjogreen), the Secretary of Education (Lucila Morelos Páez), and their team (Gene Ogiste: Director of Educational Quality, Ministry of Education; Ricardo Gordon: Pedagogical Expert; Fressman Avila: General Coordinator; and David Cardona: Academic Coordinator).
On these islands, a portion of the population speaks Creole, and Spanish and English are taught in schools. It is a trilingual community, comparable to ours, but they are now In the process of introducing Creole into the education system. Their objective was to learn from our process concerning language management and the role of Papiamentu and foreign languages therein.
The delegation visited the three schools of Fundashon Skol Humanista na Papiamentu (FSHP), Kolegio Elis Juliana (DOS) and Kolegio Santa Famia (RK), which were selected in cooperation with the respective school boards. A representative from FPI/NTIC and representatives from the Ministry of Education were also present. Time was also taken for the delegation to observe a lesson and engage in discussions with teachers and other education experts. During this first visit, cultural aspects were also given attention, under the supervision of the Department of Culture.
At the end of this first visit, the governor of the Archipelago expressed the wish to establish a structural form of cooperation with Curaçao in the future, in order to support one another in the process of language innovation in education.
Teacher Exchange: 2023
From May 8 to 12, 2023, a second delegation, this time consisting of five teachers and two representatives from the Ministry of Education, visited Curaçao. Their goal was to visit the same schools as in the previous visit, but this time with more time to observe lessons and interact with teachers and school leaders.
During these exchange days, the group also visited De Spingplank at SGO Otrabanda, where children from various nationalities are prepared for entry into regular secondary schools, where Dutch is the language of instruction.
International Mother Language Day: 2024
The Banco de la República of Colombia invited the director of NTIC to give a lecture on the occasion of International Mother Language Day for the community of San Andrés. Mrs. Dijkhoff gave a presentation about language management in Curaçao and the successes that our country has achieved over the years and challenges that we faced along the way. Emphasis was placed on how we handled language management, by firstly generating awareness among the population, followed by laws establishing the formal use of Papiamentu in education, developing a curriculum and program for Papiamentu as a subject, and finally training teachers and producing school materials.
She also gave an overview of the development that Papiamentu went through before becoming an official language, including political decisions linked to the disintegration of the Antilles, which were based on the different spelling propositions proposed for Bonaire and Curaçao (a phonological spelling) and Aruba (an etymological spelling). Additionally, she elaborated upon the creation of two institutes responsible for producing Papiamentu school materials, Sede di Papiamentu/Fundashon Planifikashon di Idioma (FPI) on the one hand, and Fundashon Material pa Skol (FMS), on the other hand, responsible for all other school subjects. Both institutes were later on replaced the National Language Institute, of which she is the present director.
Lastly, she touched on the fact that Papiamentu is the mother tongue and second language of the majority of our students, whereas Dutch, English, and Spanish are foreign languages, and the didactic consequences related to this fact.
2024: Challenges in Education for the Coming Four Years
On September 17 and 18, Gene Ogiste, Director of Educational Quality at the Ministry of Education, requested INIC’s support during their annual conference, where the vision for the future of education in the Archipelago in the coming 4 years, was to be presented. The request was a workshop on language planning for local teachers, and a presentation at a conference, highlighting the importance of the mother tongue in education, for the local stakeholders
Key points that were raised included:
- The undeniable fact that a mother tongue is an ecosystem that is vital for communication and the identification of it’s speaking community.
- The way a tongue defines and shapes an individual’s culture, norms, values, and ultimately their personality.
- The discrepancy between universal linguistic rights and the Caribbean reality that we and other Creole-speaking communities face in our educational systems.
- The impact of this discrepancy on the result of our students.
- The transformation that will take place within the community, among students and teachers, but also among speakers themselves when students receive instruction in the language they speak at home.
- Finally, several recommendations were presented based on Mrs. Dijkhoff’s extensive experience in Curaçao and her work in communities outside of Curaçao, such as Aruba, Bonaire, Haiti, Suriname, Jamaica, and Guyana.
Future Plans
Since 2022, the governor of the Archipelago of San Andrés and the Minister of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports have expressed the idea of establishing a structural cooperation through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). This MOU would formalize a cooperation agreement between the countries to support each other in improving the quality of education in their respective mother tongues and the foreign languages Spanish and English. NTIC aims to fulfill this wish by the end of 2024.
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