Suriname receives around twenty containers of school furniture from Europe

“We have had a fortunate development,” the president said ahead of the new school year. She acknowledged that there are still challenges that need to be resolved, including the shortage of available places at schools.

According to Geerlings-Simons, an inventory has already been made of which schools need to be renovated and equipped with school furniture. Construction has also begun on fifty classrooms to accommodate more pupils.

Calculated shortage of 4,800 places for four-year-olds

Minister Dirk Currie of Education, Science and Culture recently presented figures in parliament on the available education capacity. According to records from the Centraal Bureau voor Burgerzaken (CBB, Central Bureau for Civil Affairs), there are 9,244 four-year-olds, while 356 schools together have 4,444 places available for year 1. Based on the total number of four-year-olds, the shortage therefore amounts to 4,800 places.

At the time of the presentation, 4,786 children had been registered. That was already 342 more than the number of available places. The remaining 4,458 four-year-olds had not yet been registered at that time.

During online pre-registration in July, 2,572 children were registered. Another 2,214 children were registered through the schools. This brought the total number of registrations during the registration round of July 22, 23 and 24 to 4,786.

Currie stressed that registrations have not been stopped and that new registrations may be added every day. According to the minister, these pupils will also be placed at a school. Additional schools and classrooms are being built to expand capacity.

Also a shortage in transition to year 9

The presentation also showed that 2,592 pupils must be placed at a secondary school when transitioning from year 8 to year 9. Only 1,496 places were available for them, a shortage of 1,096. “So we have a surplus of 1,096 pupils who need to be placed,” Currie said.