| BASIC DATA | |
| Official Country Name: | Republic of Suriname |
| Region: | South America |
| Population: | 431,303 |
| Language(s): | Dutch, English, Sranang Tongo, Surinamese (Taki-Taki), Hindustani, Javanese |
| Literacy Rate: | 93% |
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,…
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 …
About 90 percent of all Suriname's four- and five-year-old children enroll in preschool.
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 seco…
The 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.
Training for preschool and primary teaching is provided through a four-year program at three teachertraining 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.
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 n…
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