Philipsburg:--- The Kadaster is currently looking for qualified youngsters to train them for taking positions within the organization in the coming period. Within a time range of 10-20 years the current staff will retire and therefore it is important to start in time with bringing in young people to secure the continuation. The new spirit and ideas combined with the existing experience must accumulate into a blend to improve and extend the Kadaster service. A period of 10-20 years may look long but is not as long as it seems to be and that makes it important to start now with the training of a new generation staffers. The focus is on the mid-level positions, with outstanding individuals advancing to the management positions. In the past little attention was paid to the training and upgrading of the educational level of the staff but the Office is now striving to have a future staff of fully qualified surveyors and registration assistants. For that purpose a training/learning programme is being developed in which students will have a combination of job training and classes. The programme is meant to give the selected local youth the opportunity to further their education on the Island while providing the opportunity for local future professionals to fill in all vacating positions in the future. The Kadaster is looking into different options and one is an idea that was advocated by Perry Geerlings during his term in the Supervisory Board, to give scholarships to students for specialized studies. Another option is to support students in their further study and in both options they have a job guarantee upon return. The main objective however is to have the Kadaster positions completely filled by St. Maarten people on the long run, because the potential is available, but we have to find ways to utilize it. On Monday and Tuesday March 11 and 12 Mr. Clemens Roos and Mr. Jonathan Charles from the Kadaster had information sessions with students from Milton Peters College, the only school that showed interest in this initiative. During these sessions the students were informed about what the function of the Kadaster is, why this initiative is taken, what the Kadaster is aiming at and what the requirements are to participate. Out of these information sessions the Kadaster hopes to get enough qualified applicants to realise this initiative. With the realization of this initiative, an idea that was brought forward long ago by the former chair of the Supervisor Board, Perry Geerlings is being realized. The current Board with Chair Mrs. Sandiford, is also in full support of this initiative ever since the idea was brought forward by Mr. Geerlings.
The Kadaster management hopes that this initiative will be followed by other entities on the Island, especially by governmental offices, in order to give the local youth perspectives for the future. We are taking the first step and we hope to be followed by others, so that in the end we can design a comprehensive program in which different disciplines will participate, giving more options to the attendees.