Gumbs: Education reform goes beyond the FBE exam

GREAT BAY--Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Melissa Gumbs says meaningful reform of St. Maarten’s Foundation Based Education (FBE) system will require sustained national commitment and cannot be achieved by simply removing the FBE exam.

Her latest remarks come following public reaction to her recent announcement that the long-awaited evaluation report on FBE is completed. The report, prepared by the CLIMB Foundation, marks the first formal assessment of the system since its introduction in 2004 and, according to the Minister, provides important context on what FBE was originally meant to be.

Addressing calls to eliminate the FBE exam, Minister Gumbs said the country must resist the temptation of quick fixes. She pointed out that education reform does not happen overnight and referenced Curaçao’s own decision-making process, noting that policy changes there were made after research and deliberate planning, not immediate reaction.

She maintained that the reform process will require short-, medium-, and long-term action based on the report’s recommendations, and that everyone will have a role to play in making those changes successful.

Minister Gumbs said that responsibility extends beyond government and the schools alone. She called on parents, teachers, school managers, school boards, ministry departments, and the wider society to take an active role in supporting children’s education. She also said the private sector has a role to play, particularly in ensuring that working parents are able to attend report card meetings, parent-teacher conferences, and other important school engagements.

The Minister warned that complaints about the future workforce cannot be separated from the support children receive now. Without broad and honest involvement from all stakeholders, she said, St. Maarten will continue to produce young people who are not adequately equipped with basic academic and life skills.

She also linked the conversation on FBE reform to the broader importance of child development and hands-on learning, noting that children need opportunities to build motor skills, interact with their environment, and learn through practical engagement rather than passive instruction alone.

Minister Gumbs said the evaluation report is only the beginning of a much longer national process. She urged all stakeholders to engage openly and constructively as the country works toward an education system that better serves its students.

“The evaluation results are only the first step in what actually has to be a much longer journey to developing that plan to address the identified challenges,” the Minister said, adding that the Ministry cannot move forward alone and that real progress will require consultation, collaboration, and collective action.

Minister Gumbs has said the report shows that the country’s education system has suffered not only from long-standing challenges, but also from years of decisions made without sufficient long-term planning. She noted that while many persons have long argued that FBE is not functioning as intended, no formal study had ever been carried out until her administration approved the review and moved it forward.

According to the Minister, the issue is not simply the exam itself, but the wider education system that has failed to consistently deliver the lessons, experiences, and developmental support students need in order to succeed. She said doing away with the exam would not correct those deeper problems and would instead amount to another temporary response to a much larger structural issue.

Minister Gumbs stressed that the weaknesses now being confronted are the result of roughly two decades of inadequate evaluation, incomplete implementation, and insufficient policy follow-through. One of the major concerns identified, she said, was the removal of Cycle 3 from the original FBE model without first understanding the full impact that decision would have on the wider system.

Drawing from the report, the Minister said FBE was designed as a child-centered model rooted in experiential and developmentally appropriate learning. She noted that the philosophy behind the model is based on the work of education thinkers such as John Dewey, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Maria Montessori, and Paulo Freire, all of whom emphasized learning through real-life experiences, interaction with the environment, differentiated instruction, and teacher facilitation over rigid instruction.

The Minister said the report suggests that St. Maarten may not have been implementing FBE as originally intended over the past 21 years. Based on school visits, discussions with parents, and her own observations, she indicated that the issue may not be that the model itself must be discarded, but that it was never properly and consistently implemented.

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