Commissioner Heyliger signs USONA agreement for school information system.

Present were Lars Walrave, Dutch Representative on St. Maarten, Reginald Isenia, Director of USONA(St. Maarten), and Bart Pasman also of USONA.

Commissioner Heyliger said that he was pleased to sign the agreement, which was funded by the Dutch Government. "I want to thank them, and I am pleased that this project will assist students of St. Maarten." Heyliger said.

The EMIS program is part of the institutional strengthening program and has a budget of Naf. 650.000 with a time frame of 16 months.

The EMIS system will collect, store, and process data provided by schools and other educational institutions in a central system operated by the Sector Education and its departments.

Isenia of USONA is pleased that he is able to assist the government with this project. The project is important for the school system.

EMIS is a necessary innovation in the execution of the existing tasks of the Island Territory, but it is also a crucial instrument in the process of taking over the remaining federal tasks by St. Maarten, the most important examples being inspection and implementation of Compulsory Education. Upgrading of the student tracking systems in the schools is part of the project as well

The Department of Education will use this system to generate reports that support its operations and its decision making process.

Examples of information generated by EMIS are:

1. information about the enrollment in schools, that is used to calculate the correct school subsidies;
2. information about the attainment of students, that is used for quality control and inspection;
3. information used to monitor and evaluate educational innovations;
4. information used for the purpose of decision making about curriculum development, establishment of new types of education or the planning of new schools;
5. information for the purpose of long term planning of educational infrastructure and the matching of educational output to the requirements labor market;

The vision of the EMIS project is to improve the government administration and its decision‐making process in the field of educational policy. This in turn will increase the quality of the educational system and will benefit the youth of St. Maarten. In this way, the EMIS will contribute to a more efficient allocation of resources of the Island Territory and future Country of St. Maarten.

The Implementation Organisation of the Foundation for Development of the Netherlands Antilles (Uitvoeringsorganisatie Stichting Ontwikkeling Nederlandse Antillen/USONA) is responsible for fair and effective management of the funds that the Netherlands makes available to the Netherlands Antilles for development projects

These projects must fit within the four regular programmes: Institutional Strengthening and Administrative Strength, Education and Youth, Netherlands Antilles Security Plan 2, and Social Economic Initiative.

Each year the Netherlands makes a certain amount available for such projects.

Only the Country and the five island areas can submit projects to USONA.

USONA operates as follows:

1. works on the commission of the Foundation for the Development of the Netherlands Antilles (Stichting Ontwikkeling Nederlandse Antillen - SONA);
2. is able to manage the cooperative resources independently of Dutch or Antillean politics;
3. has expertise in the area of project assessment, project management, monitoring and evaluation;
4. works according to procedural regulations approved by SONA and the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations.