SXMElections.com

St. Maarten – United People’s party MP Maurice Lake has submitted a list of points for the plan of action of the permanent parliamentary committee for education, culture, youth and sports. The committee will meeting today to discuss a draft a plan of action for 2015.

Lake suggests that the government recognizes the University of St. Martin. He also wants to strengthen the USM’s hospitality program and revisit the subsidy agreement for the university. Lake is also looking for options to bring more students to USM. He furthermore wants to improve the inventive policy for returning young local professionals.

Another area Lake is interested in are statistics related to supply and demand for returning students who have graduated; the fields of study, and impact on the local labor market.

Lake would like to see culture and heritage becoming a main focal point in the educational system and within the community, adding that it would also benefit the tourism sector overall.

“Teachers have a guide book related to culture/heritage, but the students need a content book showing the national symbols, government structure and much more about our heritage, and every child should have one. As a member of the committee, the issues of education, culture, youth and sports are very dear to me. We need to address the basic issues at hand that are affecting our young people,” Lake stated in a press release.

“In order for USM to be accredited, government has to recognize it as our national university. The subsidy of 850,000 guilders per year needs to be increased if we are serious about higher learning in the country. We need to be realistic and show more support to USM,” he added.

“At the end of every school year, you have students graduating from high school. We need a tracking system in place to know where they are going,” Lake stated. “How many have applied for a scholarship to go abroad? How many have gone to USM?  How many have applied to enter the local labor market? How many leave the country to study abroad on their own with family assistance?  How many sit at home idling?”

This information is very important for parliament to have an understanding of what is taking place within our communities and with our sons and daughters, Lake stated.  “Youth unemployment is very high.  You have young people getting involved in crime. We spend millions annually to send our brightest minds abroad to study and we want them to return to help build the country. There is an expat policy, but we need to improve the policy for our young professionals who want to return. There is a discrepancy between what is offered to expats and our young professionals.”