Prime Minister Gaston Browne has thrown his support behind a proposal to make community service a formal component of student life in Antigua and Barbuda, arguing that those who benefit from publicly funded education have an obligation to contribute to national development.
According to Antigua News Room, Browne voiced his endorsement during his weekly radio programme, praising an opinion piece on education funding by University of the West Indies Five Islands Campus Principal, Professor Justin Robinson. Browne described the piece as "very erudite, very apropos, and intellectually sound," adding that it was "an article that will be referenced for many more years to come."
Robinson had proposed that community service become a routine part of student life, with students contributing through activities such as tutoring younger children, restoring community spaces, assisting at libraries and clinics, participating in youth programmes, and supporting environmental projects. Browne said he was particularly impressed by the recommendation.
The Prime Minister offered a concrete example of how the idea could be applied locally. "If you take out the Potters Primary School, and you look at the secondary and post-secondary students that you have at ABICE and the secondary students at the Ottos Comprehensive School, you're looking at an ecosystem of probably about 1,300 or 1,400 individuals. There is no reason why they cannot rotate and teach them how to clean the pools and so on," he said.
Browne suggested that students could receive modest stipends for contributing to the upkeep of community facilities, helping to reduce government maintenance costs while instilling a sense of responsibility. "You drive down the cost, they get a little stipend, after school they go, they clean the pool, and we would not have to incur all this cost and the facilities will be kept in a pristine way," he said.
He extended the concept to the school system itself, proposing that senior students be engaged in maintenance work during summer breaks, carried out alongside professionals. "There's no reason why during the summer period that we should not give them little jobs as senior students to go and paint the buildings. They can do so in conjunction with professionals, but they too can earn a few dollars during the summer," Browne said.
The Prime Minister also framed the initiative as a crime-prevention measure, arguing that giving young people opportunities to earn income and engage productively within their communities could help steer them away from criminal activity.
The proposal forms part of broader discussions about strengthening Antigua and Barbuda's education system. Browne expressed support for Robinson's call to ensure that education funding benefits the full pipeline — from primary and secondary schools through to the Antigua and Barbuda College of Advanced Studies and the UWI Five Islands Campus. His comments were made in the context of ongoing discussions around expanding the education tax to generate additional resources for the country's educational institutions.
