WILLEMSTAD - “Young people have little faith in politics,” says Thessely Rietwijk, who works for a foundation that provides sex education in schools. This is because they say they "see too little change".
“There is too little investment in education, there is too much poverty on the island, foundations are not supported by the government and there are few prospects for young people to find a good job on the island,” says Rietwijk.
These young people would prefer to see the new government tackle issues such as education and employment, but they also say they have little confidence that this will actually happen. “All parties always promise that they will do something about education. But we, the young people, do not see any of this. The level of education must be raised because we are really behind countries such as the Netherlands,” says Danielisa Raven, intern at the Bos di Hubentut foundation.
Most of the Curaçao students still go to study in the Netherlands after high school.
Need better teaching materials and more internships
"It is time to invest in the teaching materials, for example in new textbooks, because the level of our current books is really very bad." The young people also notice that there are hardly any internships on the island. “Hardly anyone in my class has an internship,” says Danielisa. “that's a real problem because you can't graduate without an internship.”