Project lead
Professor David Dewhurst, College of Medicine & Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh
Other Key Staff
Professor Neil Turner (Renal Medicine)
Dr Helen Cameron (Medical Education)
Professor Pam Smith (Nursing)
Dr Liz Grant (Community Medicine)
Ross Ward (Learning Technology)
Jo Spiller (Learning Technology)
Funding
Scottish Government International Development Fund grant: £396,425 (May 2013 – March 2016)
Summary
Malawi has high maternal, neonatal, child and infant mortality rates and Government has made a major commitment to address these issues in-line with the Millennium Development Goals. Leaders in the professions, which have direct impact on health service quality, require specialist education/training beyond their initial qualifications and both constituent colleges of the University of Malawi (UNIMA), the College of Medicine (COM) and Kamuzu College of Nursing (KCN), now offer Masters courses for doctors and nurses in maternal and child health specialties. In addition, and in response to a Ministry of Health request, COM has developed new specialty BSc degrees for clinical officers. This proposal aims to build on previous projects where the introduction of new pedagogies and support for student learning through e-learning at undergraduate level has been transformative. The focus in this project will be postgraduate (PG) education and specifically those PG courses which underpin post-basic training in maternal and child health.
Specifically this project will deliver: training in digital learning resource creation; support in developing curriculum management systems; a central resource repository providing information and structured access to online learning resources to facilitate sharing; IT systems to support delivery of online assessments and course evaluations; and improved connectivity between courses and students particularly when they are on clinical attachments/internships in district hospitals.
The Project builds on previous work in Malawi, which started in 2005, and which has created a critical mass of trained health care leaders able to mentor and lead future developments. Activities will focus on knowledge and skills transfer, staff development and capacity-building all geared to supporting local development activities and giving the project in-built sustainability. To deliver the outputs, faculty need training in resource creation, curriculum design and modern methods of teaching, learning and assessment. Technology platforms will be developed locally by Malawian IT staff working with University of Edinburgh counterparts thus making best use of the unique skills of the partners. Subsequent on-the-job training in managing the systems will provide in-built sustainability. The platforms will be built such that further development to deliver other postgraduate specialist courses can be carried out locally as required.
The project will help to ensure that UNIMA can educate and train more senior doctors, nurses and clinical officers, who will enter the Malawi health service with greater knowledge, skills and competencies to deal with maternal and child health issues. The target groups for this project are the small number of the high-achieving medical and healthcare practitioners destined to be the leaders in maternal and child healthcare particularly in district hospitals and who will continue the development of local academic and IT staff capacity and capability in e-learning.
