St. Eustatius became a special municipality of the kingdom of the Netherlands in 2010. This led to students being obligated to learn the Dutch language even though they live thousands of kilometers away from the Netherlands. It was also the sole language of instruction up until 2014. Now it has been changed to the dominant foreign language. What does this mean for the pupils? Doesn’t this resemble something out of the colonial times? Do the students struggle to learn Dutch on an island where they never come in contact with the language or have any use for it?

Adriaan D’Haens expert on Dutch as a foreign language (at St Eustatius & Saba) was interviewed to shed light on this topic.