Stichting Voortgezet Onderwijs van de Bovenwindse Eilanden (SVOBE; "Foundation for the Advancement of Secondary Education Windward Islands") is a nonprofit organisation that operates two secondary schools on Sint Maarten: Milton Peters College (MPC) in South Reward and Sundial School in Philipsburg. They are both subsidised by the Sint Maarten government.[1]
Milton Peters has HAVO (Senior General Secondary Education), VWO (pre-university), and VSBO (preparatory secondary vocational education) classes; the third includes PKL (practically oriented framework), PBL (practically oriented basic training), TKL classes (theoretical framework).[1] The HAVO, VWO, and VSBO-TKL classes are all Dutch medium while other departments have English and Dutch medium classes. MPC is the largest secondary school in Sint Maarten.[2] MPC is the only Sint Maarten secondary school with a Dutch pre-university programme.[3]
SVOBE was established on 20 February 1974.[4] SVOBE was created as the neutral governing body for a new school created by the merger of the government secondary school John Phillips School and the Catholic secondary school Pastoor Nieuwen Huis School.[5] MPC, which began construction in 1974, opened on 17 August 1976.[4]
The predecessor of Sundial, School for Home Economics, opened in 1966. It became a part of SVOBE in 1976.[5]