Antigua's YEEP Posts 96.5% Pass Rate as Minister Touts Support Model

A 96.5 per cent pass rate in the 2026 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination examinations is the number Antigua and Barbuda put at the center of its case for pairing education with wraparound social support.

Minister of State in the Ministry of Social and Urban Transformation, Hon. Kiz Johnson, delivered that figure while representing the country at the XVIII Ministerial Forum for Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Panama City on October 20 and 21. The forum, convened under the theme "Connecting Policies for Resilient Development," brought together ministers and senior officials to discuss coordinated responses to the region's social, economic and environmental challenges.

Johnson's core argument: governments must go beyond creating opportunities and tackle the barriers that stop vulnerable people from converting those opportunities into lasting economic independence. Governments, she said, must ensure that a person's circumstances at birth do not determine their prospects for success.

"But opportunities alone are not enough. We must equip our people with the capabilities to seize those opportunities and the assets to transform them into lasting economic independence," Johnson said.

What does the 96.5 per cent figure actually represent?

It's the overall pass rate recorded by the Youth Education and Empowerment Programme (YEEP), which Johnson held up as proof that access to education must come with support addressing what happens outside the classroom. YEEP participants include young mothers and people whose schooling was interrupted by poverty, family difficulties or abuse — cases where returning to education requires more than an offer of a place in class.

According to Johnson, YEEP has provided childcare and counselling support to help participants overcome obstacles including parenting responsibilities and abusive relationships.

"We are not simply opening the door to opportunity. We are helping people overcome the obstacles that prevent them from walking through it," she said.

For practitioners, that framing matters. The minister positioned the results as evidence for investing in support systems, not just classroom seats — a direct rebuttal to programs that measure access alone.

Free tuition and the higher-education push

Johnson also cited the establishment of The University of the West Indies Five Islands Campus in 2019 and the government's commitment to free undergraduate tuition for eligible students pursuing their first degree. She said these measures are removing financial barriers that historically kept families from accessing higher education.

Expanding postgraduate opportunities, she added, would support the development of skills needed for national progress.

Entrepreneurship as the second track

Johnson stressed that pathways to improved living standards must extend beyond traditional academic routes. She identified entrepreneurship as another critical avenue, linking access to affordable business financing with income generation, ownership and wealth creation.

The instrument she named is the Entrepreneurial Development Fund, which supports aspiring and existing business owners who have viable ideas and skills but lack the collateral or financial history that commercial banks require.

"These are not merely economic interventions. They are investments in human dignity, resilience and generational progress," Johnson said.

Why now

The minister's remarks come against a backdrop of rising living costs, climate change, technological advances and global economic pressures. She urged governments to act so that uncertainty does not permanently limit citizens' futures.

The so-what for policymakers and development funders watching the region: Antigua and Barbuda is arguing, with a specific pass rate attached, that the measurable returns on education spending rise sharply when childcare, counselling and patient financing are funded alongside it.