WILLEMSTAD - The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports (OWCS) is going to refurbish ten more schools. A request for second financing from the Netherlands is now being prepared for this.
This month 5.6 million guilders were made available for maintenance work on the Kolegio Erasmo, the Prof. dr. Nelly Winkel school, and the Cola Debrot school. The financial aid is part of the thirty million euros of the National Package earmarked for the maintenance of school buildings. In 2021, 1 million guilders was already made available for much-needed maintenance, such as repairing leaking roofs and replacing toilets.
“Good school facilities are a priority of the government, which has come to concrete agreements with school boards for the maintenance and repair of more schools,” said education minister Sithree van Heydoorn. The ministry states that the list of ten schools cannot be published yet, because a number of agreements still have to be formalized.
Van Heydoorn has introduced a maintenance standard for school buildings, which is laid down by law. In addition, a joint project organization has been set up that prepares grant applications, coordinates maintenance, and accounts for expenditure and the quality of the work. A project plan has been drawn up for each school to eliminate overdue maintenance and to bring the school buildings up to the maintenance standard.