PHILIPSBURG— On the 12 and 13 of August 2009 a AGO start conference was held for the St. Maarten Vocational Training School. The Department of Educational Research Policy in collaboration with the Insular Department of Education; USONA; Fide, Curacao and the SMVTS organized this conference.
The main objective of the start conference was to appraise every stakeholder of the developments pertaining to the Arbeidsgericht Onderwijs (AGO) program and what this means for the SMVTS. The English translation of AGO is Labor Market Oriented Education (LMOE). In essence, this program is a very practical program that targets a specific group of students. This group of students will receive a hands-on education in small groups geared at preparing them for immediate entrance to the labor market.
The structure, procedures, and methods used in this program are different than those used at a traditional Preparatory Secondary Vocational Education (PSVE) and as such, additional information was needed for the school. How these two educational programs will interact at the SMVTS was also a point of discussion during the conference.
An evaluation of this conference has shown that the start conference was in general well received by the staff of the SMVTS. Staff members said they left the conference armed with new information and a will to work on the implementation of this new educational program.
This start conference was the first step taken in tackling the challenge of gaining proper accreditation for the SMVTS. In the future, the school will be working on both the LMOE and PSVE programs to be implemented at the school, seeking temporary status, and working out other challenges on the educational, organizational, and infrastructural front. The SMVTS is not the only one with work ahead; the island government has also some work to do in order to adequately usher in this new educational system for the SMVTS. A collaboration of efforts from the school itself, DERPI and FIDE, Curaçao will be necessary to bring these future plans to realization.
