Curaçao & Sint Maarten - UNDP Trinidad and Tobago

School
The schools need to contribute significantly to the advancement of boys in education, first and foremost by
creating gender awareness among teachers who can be trained to identify and to deal with gender differences in the
class room. In this respect, a better guidance of mixed groups in school could ensure that pupils would feel more
involved and consequently, could contribute more to group work. In primary school, extra attention should be paid
to language skills training for boys; in this respect, lessons can be learned from experiments in other countries.
Since it has been shown that the current reading education is not sufficiently fascinating for boys, a new approach
in promoting reading, especially geared towards boys, is necessary. Also in this area, several experiments have been
conducted elsewhere, which could certainly serve as examples for programs for the promotion of reading in Curacao
and Sint Maarten.
With regards to the behavioral problems which are mostly brought to school by adolescent boys with problems,
consideration should be given to making use of programs which would make young people aware of their own
identity development, greater resilience and teaching skills on how to deal with peer pressure. The anti-school
attitude of boys in Secondary Education could be countered by offering more challenging learning material at
school. Research has shown that social and cultural activities outside the school timetable make education more
attractive to young people and have a positive impact on school performance.
Equally, a greater student involvement in the happenings at school has a positive impact on the performance of
male and female students. Such involvement can be stimulated by establishing student councils and more parent
involvement in school activities.
Segregated schools
In a discussion with local experts, the possibility of establishing hybrid schools has been suggested: within a coeducation
system, in the case of some subjects, girls and boys would receive separate instruction for a determined
period of time.
It is also important not to neglect women with disabilities, to address issues faced by sexual minorities, and to
recognize that women’s work, for the most part, remains “under-counted or uncounted.” Reliable data on the
situation of disabled women is lacking because most data on women does not explicitly mention the situation of
disabled women; and likewise, most research on the Disabled does not provide data on disabled women. Engaging
men in the design, implementation and delivery of programs, for instance, is a means as well as the result of
culturally sensitive approaches, and will be a requirement of any upcoming development process intended to
change behaviors and attitudes, especially of vulnerable young men.
The new governments have a chance to articulate the necessary relationship between the promotion of human rights
with a specific emphasis on women’s rights, within the overall achievement of the MDGs because of the connectedness
between threats, challenges and opportunities. Gender equality and women’s empowerment (economic, political and
social) is at the center of the triangle of development, freedom and peace in the home, community, or larger society.
Gender-based violence constitutes a major factor in the daily lives of women, worldwide, to the point that any
attempts to support their efforts to ‘work their way out of poverty’ with whatever types of government or nongovernment
program support, without dealing with violence are not likely to be successful. The interconnectedness
of gender, violence, and development need to be further explored extensively.
78 First National Report | Curaçao and Sint Maarten Millennium Development Goals | 2011 Report