HEALTH PROFESSIONS EDUCATION UNIT

About the Unit

Health professions education (HPE) worldwide has expanded beyond discipline-based curriculum, large classroom teaching and annual assessment. Major changes in health professions education now focuses on integrated competency-based curriculum, student centered learning, continuous assessment and feedback. Literature indicates that Sub-Saharan Africa suffers a disproportionate share of the world’s burden of disease while also experiencing a significant health care workforce shortage.

In addition, the dearth of health professions’ schools in the region threatens efforts to scale up and improve the quality of health professions education broadly. Yet, improving HPE is essential to the development of a robust workforce. The demand for more health professionals locally, coupled with the need for high quality education, has led to the establishment of the Health Professions Education Unit of the College of Health Sciences, University of Ghana.

The Health Professions Education Unit is mandated to perform a number of roles, including supporting health professions education research (conducting research into effective means of delivering health education), teaching, programme evaluation, and facilitation of the use of educational technologies at multiple levels (undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing health professions education).

The Health Professions Education Unit of the College of Health Sciences, therefore, intends to focus on meeting the educational needs of the health professions faculty and students by developing a pool of trained faculty members conversant with educational concepts, changes in curriculum practices, newer teaching and learning methods and skills in writing quality test items.