Minister Gumbs clarifies medical education rules, must follow law

GREAT BAY--Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Melissa Gumbs appeared before Parliament on Thursday to clarify the legal and regulatory framework governing medical education on St. Maarten, stressing that any institution seeking to operate in the sector must comply fully with the country’s higher education laws and formal accreditation requirements.

The meeting was convened to discuss the frameworks regulating medical education on the island, including the legal path for institutions to be recognized and the role of accreditation under the Higher Education Ordinance. In her presentation, the Minister made clear that St. Maarten is moving toward a more structured and professional system in which institutions can no longer rely on informal practice or broad promises, but must instead satisfy the legal standards established under national law.

At the center of the Minister’s presentation was the implementation of the Higher Education Ordinance, which she said closes a longstanding regulatory gap by requiring all higher education institutions, including medical schools, to hold recognized accreditation in order to legally operate on the island.

The Minister explained that the law places the primary responsibility for quality assurance on the institution itself. Under the legal framework, schools must proactively seek accreditation and maintain it on an ongoing basis. At the same time, the Ministry of ECYS holds the authority to determine which accreditation bodies are formally accepted by government. This, she said, is the legal mechanism that allows St. Maarten to adopt what she described as a practical hybrid model for medical education oversight.

Under that hybrid approach, government does not directly evaluate a medical school’s curriculum or academic operations. Instead, government evaluates and designates suitable accreditation bodies, while those bodies carry out the technical review of the institution itself. The Minister said this model is necessary because government does not have the specialized internal medical expertise required to directly assess a School of Medicine, but it can properly assess whether an accreditation body meets standards of governance, transparency, and quality assurance.

Those designated accrediting bodies then provide the specialized academic and professional oversight by evaluating curriculum, faculty, facilities, and student outcomes according to internationally recognized standards. Once government formally recognizes such a body, the legal requirements of the Higher Education Ordinance are considered satisfied.

In the specific case of medical education on St. Maarten, the Minister noted that the island’s only medical school provider is the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine, AUC, which offers the Doctor of Medicine degree. She stated that AUC already operates under a credible and internationally recognized accreditation framework through the Accreditation Commission on Colleges of Medicine, ACCM.

According to the Minister, AUC most recently passed reaccreditation in November 2021 with zero findings, which she described as a strong outcome. She noted that the six-year validity of that accreditation aligns with the cycle required under St. Maarten’s law and said the institution’s existing accreditation process already satisfies the spirit of the new legal requirements for medical education.

The Minister explained that for AUC, compliance under the new law will largely be a matter of formal government recognition of ACCM as a designated accreditation body. She described this as a smooth transition rather than a major structural disruption, saying the existing ACCM framework maps naturally onto what St. Maarten’s law requires.

In presenting the rationale for that position, the Minister referred to an evaluation of ACCM against the accreditation framework criteria. She said ACCM performed strongly across the key categories reviewed, including governance, resources, quality assurance, transparency, and accreditation standards, making it the most natural candidate for formal recognition by government following enactment of the Higher Education Ordinance.

She also pointed to the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and Other Health Professions, CAAM-HP, as another relevant regional option. While AUC is currently accredited by ACCM, the Minister said CAAM-HP remains significant because it reflects a regional accreditation model in which multiple territories pool expertise and resources through a shared system. For small island jurisdictions like St. Maarten, she said, that regional model demonstrates that collaboration can be both practical and effective.

Still, the Minister made clear that government has decided not to establish its own local accreditation body. She said the ministry reached that conclusion because of financial and resource constraints. Rather than create a new institution from scratch, St. Maarten’s strategy is to rely on existing international and regional accrediting bodies, provided they are properly evaluated and formally recognized by government.

The Minister said this approach not only reduces cost, but also allows St. Maarten to leverage specialized expertise already present in established accreditation organizations. She added that AUC has been a willing partner in the process from the beginning, which she described as an important factor in successful implementation.

More broadly, the Minister said the country is now entering a period where long-unregulated parts of the education sector are being brought under clearer legal supervision. She said the Higher Education Ordinance, together with the Supervision of Education Ordinance that is still on the way, reflects the ministry’s wider effort to professionalize and regulate areas of education that had gone unaddressed for decades.

She cautioned that the way St. Maarten has historically operated as a small island can no longer continue if the country intends to build a viable future for its young people. In that context, she said no institution should expect to bypass national requirements, regardless of what it may promise or who may be representing it locally.

“With the Higher Education Ordinance in place and the supervision of education ordinance on its way,” the Minister said in substance, “persons and institutions, no matter what they may promise or proclaim they can do for us, must be subjected to the laws of our land.”

She added that compliance with the law must be consistent and principled. If the country does not respect its own laws and regulations, she warned, it cannot reasonably expect outside institutions to do so.

The Minister also raised the issue of market saturation, saying that as government strengthens regulation in education, it must also pay attention to the size and needs of the local education ecosystem. She said the ministry is carefully considering how many institutions the island can realistically accommodate and how to ensure that oversight remains meaningful as the sector develops.

In response to questions from Parliament, the Minister clarified that the country is not declaring the education market saturated at present. However, she said it is a factor the ministry must realistically consider, especially given the island’s limited size and capacity. If a formal cap on institutions becomes necessary in the future, she said, that would have to be the subject of a deliberate policy discussion and a ministry decision.

The Minister also clarified the practical sequence for institutions seeking recognition. She explained that before an institution can be recognized as a legitimate higher education provider under the law, it must be accredited through one of the accepted bodies identified within the national accreditation framework. That recognition process forms part of the roadmap for implementation of the Higher Education Ordinance.

When further pressed on the steps that come after business-related approvals, the Minister stressed that licensing from another ministry does not override or replace the education law requirements. She said accreditation is the responsibility of the Ministry of ECYS, and approvals granted elsewhere in government do not carry legal weight in determining whether an institution may be recognized as a valid educational provider.

In making that point, the Minister also highlighted what she described as an ongoing disconnect between ministries. She said situations can arise in which a business license is issued without consultation with ECYS on education-related implications, only for government to later confront regulatory conflicts that should have been addressed earlier. She again emphasized the importance of stronger inter-ministerial collaboration to avoid that kind of mismatch.

The Minister was also asked about past commitments tied to AUC, including scholarship opportunities for local students and obligations connected to earlier government concessions. In response, she stated that the requested information has already been sought from AUC, but must go through the university’s own internal channels before it can be released. She said she had hoped to receive it in time for the meeting, but had not yet done so. Once received, she said, the information will be forwarded to Parliament in writing.

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