Soft launch ‘Kibrahacha’ on the ABC islands
Last Wednesday and Thursday, ‘Kibrahacha’, the partnership for educating aspiring teachers, kicked off with a ‘soft launch’. School leaders and trainers on Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire participated in the first training sessions. The training concluded with a small, digital ceremony for the partners of ‘Kibrahacha’.
With ‘Kibrahacha’ the training institutions and school boards are jointly responsible for the training of prospective teachers. Henceforth, for a considerable part of the training this shall take place at training schools where students stand before a classroom in order to gain practical knowledge and experience. There are now officially nine training schools on the ABC islands. There, students follow a large part of their teacher training. In Aruba these are Colegio Cristo Rey, Mon Plaisir School and Princess Amalia Primary School. On Curaçao there are a total of five schools, including the Dr. Albert Schweitzer School. In addition, St. Antonius College and Kolegio Santa Famia together form a training school, as do the Römerschool and the Princess Margriet School. There are now three training schools on Bonaire: De Pelikaan Primary School, Kolegio Kristu Bon Wardador and Skol Amplio Papa Cornes.
School trainers are appointed at every training school. They receive special training for this, together with the trainers of the teacher training courses. This way there is close cooperation. Together they prepare the students optimally for their future as a Caribbean teacher of the 21st century: a teacher who has modern skills and knowledge of the rich Caribbean culture. The ‘Kibrahacha’ partnership was established to shape the cooperation between the training institutes and the school boards on the three islands. Various school boards of the ABC islands are represented here. The training institutes University of Curaçao, Instituto Pedagogico Arubano, University of Aruba and University of St. Martin are also part of the partnership.
‘Kibrahacha’ stems from one of the agreements from the ‘Vierlandenoverleg’ (Four Countries Consultation); the consultation of the Ministers of Education of countries Curaçao, Aruba, Sint Maarten and the Netherlands. In February 2019, the four ministers involved signed a partnership protocol to strengthen teacher training courses in the Caribbean part of the Kingdom. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) made a subsidy of no less than USD 380,000 available for the 2020-2021 school year for the improvement of the teacher training on the ABC Islands.