Study financing: female students outpace males 2:1

PHILIPSBURG – Female students outpace male students 2:1 when it comes to request for study financing, Minister Jorien Wuite (Education) said at Wednesday’s Council of Ministers press briefing.

For the 2018-2019 academic year, the government received 176 requests for study financing; 17 requests were withdrawn, leaving a total of 159 – twenty below the number of 2017.

The majority of the applicants (58 percent) wants to study in the United States, Canada or the Caribbean. The remaining 42 percent wants to go to Europe, mostly the Netherlands.

“The United States remains the most popular choice, followed by the Netherlands and Canada,” Wuite said.

The average age of the applicants has increased slightly to 20; the youngest applicant is 16, the eldest 55.

Of all applicants 79 (42 percent) are currently in an exam class in secondary education on the island, while 8 percent is already enrolled in tertiary level education. And the remaining 50 percent? “They are currently not in school,” Wuite said. “This could be because they finished their secondary level education a year earlier and they took an interim-year. It could also be that financial issues played a role or that they simply needed more time to decide what they wanted to study.”

At the top of the list of preferred studies is business administration and management. Minister Wuite said that this is not on the priority list of the government. Number two is psychology and social sciences, followed by medical and life sciences, ICT and computer sciences and accounting and finance.

The minister also provided data about students who sat the Foundation Based Education (FBE) exit exams. A total of 509 students did these exams in the week of May 21-24.

The overall average score for four subjects was 61 percent. The average score for math was 59 percent, for general knowledge 58, for English 76 and for Dutch 50 percent.