Legal controversy subsidy havo/vwo VPCO drags along

September 23, 2008 7:02 AM

The island territory and the Association of Protestant Christian Education (VPCO) have been entangled in a legal controversy for years about the question whether the government is compelled to subsidize a protestant havo/mavo-school.

This carried on on yesterday, despite the fact that Education-commissioner Marilyn Alcalá-Wallé (PAR) has promised that a solution is in sight.
According to VPCO, it’s going to be a subsidy amount of about 4300 guilders on balance.

A vsbo-basic curriculum with 400 students costs about 1.728.000 guilders per year. If this school has 300 vsbo-students and 100 havo-students, the extra subsidy will then be about 72.000 guilders. But there is a student-bound subsidy. If fewer students go to the catholic- or public havo-schools, because they transfer to the protestant school, then the amount for the student-bound subsidy drops and a re-allocation of the student-bound subsidy costs takes place. The other schools will then get 68.000 guilders less. Thus the government has to pay a little more than 4000 guilders in extra subsidy to the havo-school, arguments VPCO.

The legal controversy is meanwhile dragging on since the end of 2000, when the Island Council denied the first subsidy request with the argument that due to the precarious financial situation of the island, it was not possible to spend extra money on a fourth havo/vwo-school.

However, already from the beginning the VPCO has indicated that it wanted to start with two classes in one of their own already existing school-buildings. The former mavo-teachers and current vsbo-teachers are authorized to teach the lower classes of the havo; no new teachers need to be recruited for this. VPCO has promised not to submit a request for the construction of new classrooms and first set-up. The VPCO also promised to pay for the acquisition of class material herself.

According to VPCO, the island government would only have to move the teachers’ salaries and other costs, because the costs per student still ought to be paid, no matter where they go to school. VPCO has appealed the negative decision of the Island Council at that time with the governor, the appropriate way for introducing the National-ordinance Administration of Justice (LAR). The governor annulled the administrative appeal of VPCO.

The VPCO then instituted a LAR-case against this National-decision. The judge gave verdict in this case in March of last year and decided that the original decision of the Island Council was made after insufficient inquiry into the plans of VPCO, on general grounds, and without considering the specific cost-reducing proposals of VPCO. The Island Council has namely assumed a memorandum for a school of 32 classes and 864 students, with an amount of almost 5.2 million guilders for construction, and almost 2 millions for the furnishing. The budget-deficit is also not a substantiated argument for not admitting the request, said the judge.

The admissibility of the case was under discussion yesterday. The island government is of the opinion that the LAR-judge should not have declared the case admissible, because a lot of time went by between the refusal and the court case, while the VPCO says that the delay is caused by the fact that they were forced for years to take all sorts of legal courses before they could take the case to a LAR-judge. The verdict will be in November.

VPCO has meanwhile already started with two havo/vwo first classes last year and has added two new classes this year. VPCO has decided not to wait any longer, because there was enough demand for a havo/vwo from the VPCO schools for basic education.

(Source: National Newspaper Amigoe)

20 September, 2008