CAY HILL:--- Several students that are attending National Institute for Professional Advancement (NIPA) decided to speak out and demand that the Government of St. Maarten do something now if they want NIPA to be a successful junior college on St. Maarten.
Candice Dobbs (21) told SMN News that she began attending NIPA in January 2014, she said when she enrolled at NIPA for the CARE program, one year later while paying Naf. 900.00 per year she only had three classes of CARE because NIPA does not have any CARE teachers to provide the courses for the students attending the school. Dobbs said NIPA had secured a teacher she identified as Bernadette Boasman who taught three classes but then disappeared. Dobbs said she is one of the students that has been asking the director Mr. Vernon Richards about the lack of a CARE teacher and each time the Director has been lying to her and the students. Dobbs said when the students inquired about teacher Boasman they were told that she left the island but they met the teacher who told them that the NIPA Director fired her. Dobbs said another excuse they were given is that a teacher was coming from Curacao and that teacher was supposed to submit her documents to government but later they were told that the teacher in question was making too much demands (benefits) which NIPA could not provide. Recently, she said the director informed them that if they need any information on teachers that are not attending the classes they should speak with their social worker. "The persons in management do not seem to know what is going on. They are very nice people that want to help but something is desperately wrong with the director."
Dobbs said she does not intend to pay anymore school fees unless government or NIPA gets its act together. She plans to demand every dime she has paid to the school including bus fare if she is not able to complete the course. Dobbs said the way she sees it the course will stretch out for more than the three year period.
Leela Johnson (16) said in her opinion NIPA is a huge scam, she said that at 16 she is paying her own school fees to further her education and instead of being taught she is being robbed. Johnson said that the first thing that got her scared is on the day of orientation the director decided to send students out of the class and told them to go and pay their school fees. Johnson said she signed up for the CARE program and one year later she did not even learn the basics and very soon they are supposed to go on job training. "I personally believe that if government changes the director NIPA will do much better. Here you have someone that is constantly lying and does not care about the students that are paying NIPA for an education. Government on St. Maarten constantly says that when St. Maarten students leave the island to study abroad they don't come back, but here government built the first junior college and they are not providing the teachers that are necessary to teach the students. Personally I am giving NIPA until next month to provide a CARE teacher because we all have to go on job training by June." Johnson said that the students are dropping out by the day and that the students attending the CARE classes are not the only ones with problems. "I feel very sorry for the boys that is doing the marine program. They do not have any teacher, their teacher got into an accident and since then then they have no teacher. That class had 28 students, today there are only three students remaining. "Can you imagine the students that were doing the RN course had to depend on nurses to teach them and when those nurses don't have days off they have to go back home even though they are paying their school fees. All the students attending NIPA have problems but many of them are afraid to speak out, instead they drop out of school and give up on getting an education."
Two other 16 year old students Ruth Colas and Chanicka David said they want an education and their parents are working very hard to pay their school fees while they go to school and have no classes. The two teenagers said in the beginning when they started off at NIPA it was one big show because there were lots of students at the orientation and they were all impressed with the amount of students they saw taking the exams. Nicole Meyers (22) she said its pure nonsense taking place at NIPA and while they have been patient their patience ran out and that is why they have decided to go public with their plight.
The students said they already filed a complaint with the department of inspections and they have decided to go public because they believe they are being robbed and deprived of a proper education. "When we went to Inspections we were shown the curriculum, the hand-book, the thesis and materials that the CARE program entailed. "While being at NIPA for one year we did not see any of this material, all we got is the school rules."
The students further explained that they were made to pay $89 for a book that they never used and when they asked back for their monies they are told that the monies they paid for the book did not go in the director's pocket.
SMN News contacted the head of school Inspections, head of the department Chantal Schaminee Ringeling admitted that the students of NIPA were heard and a report was compiled and sent to the Minister of Education. Schaminee Ringeling said that NIPA has their full attention because there is a lot more the department is looking into other than the complaints the students made. The department head said that the students of NIPA have chosen to do the right thing by filing an official complaint and even making their plight known because those young ladies did everything correctly, they chose a profession that will lead them into child-care, Red Cross, Sister Basilla Center, White and Yellow Cross and other care centers that need their services.
Director of NIPA Vernon Richards could not be reached when SMN News contacted the school.
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