Education
The development of education and the territories’ own culture are boosted because contacts with the Netherlands have been severed. Suriname and the Antilles for the first time have a general school for secondary education (Algemeene Middelbare School).

Radio AVROS
Radio Hilversum can no longer be received, increasing the importance of local radio broadcasts: the CUROM on the Antilles and the AVROS in Suriname. Dutch is still the official language, but the broadcasters also make programmes in the local languages. The native literature also develops rapidly.

Literary magazine
On the Antilles, the literary magazine De Stoep is launched in May 1940, for Dutch language writers.
Many Antilleans write for the magazine and this inspires them to also write in their own language. 1944 sees the publication of the first book of poetry in Papiamento: Patria by Pierre Lauffer.