Health Minister Sir Molwyn Joseph has expressed his delight at the prospects of a new medical school being opened in Antigua and Barbuda.
Last week, the Cabinet invited two investors WHO interested in opening a medical school in Antigua to its meeting.
The school would be mainly targeted towards Pakistan and Indian students, with faculty also recruited from those states, however students and staff would also be selected from other nations.
“As far as I’m concerned, what we are doing here is what other countries have done and we are facilitating education, we are facilitating the training of skills, and the highest level of doctors so that there will be more doctors in the world.
“In addition to that, when you have these activities in your country … a lot of our young people will now see medicine as a good option,” Sir Molwyn said.
During the post-Cabinet press conference last week, the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Lionel Hurst said that talks will continue with the investors who hope to cater to the nearly 100,000 persons from India and Pakistan who are interested in accessing medical training but are unable to do so in their home nation.
“There are 100,000 students hoping to become doctors in Pakistan, for example, and there are only 50,000 places, and so the Pakistanis are looking for offshore medical schools in order to become medical doctors and one of the advantages of studying in a place like Antigua and Barbuda is that the lectures are all in English and the exams, especially those that would allow to practice in the United States, they’re all in English.
“Now our expectation is that [the medical school population] will reach at least 1000, but they could get up to 3000,” Hurst said.
The government is hoping that the medical school will bring significant economic benefit to the country.
