Education in Suriname

Suriname Minister of Education H.E Walter Sandriman

Suriname, situated on the Atlantic coast of northern South America, became a Dutch colony in 1667 and won independence in 1975. Its population of 431,000 consists of Creoles, East Indians, Javanese, Chinese, Africans, and Amerindians, most of whom live in the country's narrow coastal plain and capital, Paramaribo. Dutch is the official language, but English is spoken, as well as Hindustani, Javanese, and Sranang Tongo.


In 1887 the first government school opened, patterned after the Dutch high school. In the 1940s the Dutch government divided the schools into primary and junior secondary schools, and a teacher-training college. A senior secondary school and law school were added by 1950. The country's Constitution of 1987 made education both free and compulsory from age 6 to age 12. More than 90 percent of the children in the coastal areas attend primary school. When the University of Suriname was established in 1968 (renamed Anton de Kom University in 1980), it absorbed the School of Law and School of Medicine, and added a School of Social Sciences. A need for trained technical workers led to the founding of the Natural Technical Institute in 1973 and later the Commercial Institute. Since the 1970s further changes in the educational system have focused on the curricula of primary and secondary schools.Free access to education is guaranteed by the Surinamese constitution.


Tuition is minimal at all levels. About half the schools are public; the rest are religious, most of them Protestant and Roman Catholic, which also receive government funding. The education system comprises preschool, primary, junior secondary, senior secondary, and tertiary schooling. The country has about 400 primary schools and 5 high schools. The University of Suriname has faculties of law, medicine, social science and economics, engineering, and natural resources. Three technical schools and five teacher-training colleges also exist. Although many Surinamese speak only Hindi or Javanese at home, Dutch was used in school until 1980, when this rule was relaxed, but most of the textbooks and other reading materials are still written in Dutch. The school year begins October 1 and ends in mid-August. It is divided into 3 terms, one 14 weeks long, another 13 weeks, and a third 12 weeks. The school day runs from 7:00 or 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.About 90 percent of all Suriname's four- and five-year-old children enroll in preschool.

The 16,000 children enrolled in nursery school in 1993 were taught by about 600 teachers, virtually all of them female. After their second year, the children enter primary school, which consists of grades one to six. In 1993 about 71,000 students were enrolled in 297 primary schools, an increase of only 7.7 percent over the previous 10 years. About half of these students were enrolled in religious schools. Successful completion of primary school is based on an examination administered nationwide at the end of grade six. Those who pass continue to one of the junior secondary schools. Unsuccessful candidates remain at the primary level until they pass the exam or reach the end of compulsory schooling.

Secondary education consists of junior secondary school and senior secondary school. In junior secondary school, students place in one of six streams according to how they perform on their sixth-grade examination. High scorers attend general junior secondary school, a four-year academic course that includes accounting, mathematics, physics, biology, and the like. Low scorers attend the junior secondary general vocational school and take a preprofessional course leading to further education. Those who do not qualify for the junior secondary general vocational school may attend one of the three-year junior secondary technical schools to learn carpentry, automobile mechanics, and other trades. Those with even lower scores attend an elementary vocational school to learn handyman skills; a vocational home economics school to learn homemaking; or a special education school. Of the 26,000 students enrolled in junior secondary education in 1994, some 49 percent attended a general junior secondary school, 31 percent were enrolled in the junior secondary general vocational school, and 19 percent were enrolled in the terminal vocational and technical options.

Students in the general junior secondary stream take an examination at the end of grade 10 to transfer to senior secondary school. In 1997, about 54.5 percent of the students passed, and 39.6 percent failed out of the 2,788 taking this examination. Students with the highest scores can enter a three-year academic stream, which offers courses leading to university study. Those with lower scores may enter a two-year senior secondary vocational stream, which prepares them for areas such as law and journalism. Those with lower scores can enter a four-year teacher-training college for primary-teacher training, or they can attend a commercial college to learn accounting, general management, or secretarial skills. Students who are even less academically able may attend a junior secondary level elementary vocational program, a vocational home economics program, or a special education program. Higher education is provided by the University of Suriname, the Academy of Arts, and the Advanced Teacher-Training College.

he education system of Suriname is funded by the Minister of Education and Human Development and is regulated by the Ministry's Directorate of Education, which is represented in each of the 10 administrative districts by a district inspector. About half of all primary and junior secondary schools are operated by religious organizations, mostly Hindu, Muslim, or Catholic that operate with government subsidies. The religious organizations maintain the school facilities and hire their teachers from the graduates of the teacher-training college.

Training for preschool and primary teaching is provided through a four-year program at three teacher training colleges, all of them in Paramaribo, though a part-time program is offered in one of the other districts, where students can study four days a week and at a teacher-training college on weekends. Training for junior secondary teaching is provided by the Advanced Teacher Training College. Vocational and technical teachers are trained at a special training college for vocational teachers. In their third year students learn pedagogical techniques and practice-teach in a school one day a week. The entire fourth year is spent in practice teaching.

Suriname's schools generally are in poor condition. Many of the schools in rural areas lack toilet facilities, running water, or electricity, and many that were damaged during the civil war in the 1980s remain unrepaired. When instructional supplies are provided, if they are not stolen, they arrive many weeks after school begins. Conditions are so dire that the government has instituted a national construction plan, with financial assistance from other countries. The interior regions have no junior or senior secondary schools. The quality of instruction also varies between the urban and interior areas. Whereas about half of students in the Paramaribo area qualify for entrance to the academic track of junior secondary school, only about 30 percent of students in the interior do so.

Education is widely available, particularly at the lower levels, and most Surinamese can afford to send their children to school, but the number of qualified graduates remains low, mainly because of high dropout and repetition rates, poor instruction, lack of education materials, and deteriorated school buildings. About 9 out of 10 Surinamese children start school, but fewer than 4 in 1,000 finish senior secondary school. Special programs have been set up for those who never enter or who drop out, but these programs cannot keep pace with demand.

Apathy has also become a problem in the school system. Less than 1 percent of the students in teacher training school want to teach. Morale among teachers in the schools is low because of poor pay, poor facilities, and a lack of teaching materials. Between 1980 and 1994, teachers' salaries declined by four-fifths in real terms, thereby contributing to an outflow of qualified teachers who could get jobs abroad. Many teachers do not come to work although they continue to collect their salary. Finding teachers willing to serve in the interior or distant coastal districts has been a long-standing problem. The practice of shunting academically weak and unmotivated students into teaching leaves many teachers poorly prepared for their work. The system needs an entrance examination for teacher-training colleges that is separate from the national examination so as to screen out unmotivated and academically weak students, thereby improving instruction throughout the system.

Suriname receives some educational aid from a number of countries, principally the Netherlands and Belgium. Dutch support has focused on providing instructional materials and supplies at the primary level, particularly in the interior, developing apprenticeship programs in vocational-technical education and supporting higher education. Much of the international assistance to education has been at the tertiary level, in the form of assistance to the University of Suriname and scholarship programs to support Surinamese students studying abroad.

Despite these financial ties, Suriname's economic interests are increasingly shifting toward countries in which English, Portuguese, and Spanish are the official language. The dominance of Dutch in Suriname's education system has slowed the development of a curriculum that better serves the country's needs. Suriname could strengthen its educational system by including instruction not only in English but Portuguese and Spanish, especially as students advance through the higher grades. The Ministry of Education needs better management so that schools are repaired in a timely fashion, budgets are allocated equally among interior and urban schools, and abuses are curtailed. By improving teacher training, the number of well-qualified teachers would increase, and in turn students would be better educated and more of them would reach the higher levels of education.

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—Bernard E. Morris