Trip Report 2.0 - Jun 24 2009 (Challenges)

On the 24th & 25th of June I co-facilitated a meeting/workshop of stakeholders in our preservice education program in Botswana. Members included representatives from the Ministry of Health; the Nursing and Midwifery Council; principals, deputy principals and heads-of-department from all 8 Health Training Institutes; and service providers from the Francistown hospital. The session I led was aimed at eliciting challenges from the participants and relating them to some of the findings and recommendations from the learning technology readiness assessment we conducted in February (See Assessing Learning Technology Readiness: A Pre-Service Case Study from Botswana for details and tools).

So, what are some of the challenges?

• Too much to do - But not enough time & resources. Pretty self-explanatory.
• Additions to the curriculum - Without removing anything. Bloated curricula.
  
• "Forced" programs (e.g. IMCI) - No input from local folks. Hence, no buy-in. And resistance.
  
• Large number of students - Higher enrollments without consequent increase in faculty/staff.
  
• Lack of human resources - See "Too much to do" above. Again, pretty self-explanatory.
  
• Little support for program implementation - Lots of great ideas but not a lot of help to realize them.
  
• Student attitudes - Kids are enrolling to get jobs, not because they want to be healthcare professionals. Doesn't make for the best learning environment.
  
• Meeting student learning needs - Everyone learns differently. And the kids are tied to their mobile phones & all over Facebook :P
  
• Not enough (time for) clinical exposure for faculty - How do you teach something you can't even do yourself?
  
• Curriculum conflicts - How are you sure that what you're teaching is aligned with all elements across the curriculum?
  
• Not enough simulation - Students don't have enough time to practice before they're required to see & treat live patients.
  
• Effective teaching and assessment skills - Just because you're a teacher doesn't mean you really know how to teach. Same goes for assessment. Doing isn't always doing well.
  
• Faculty attrition - The good ones get promoted.

That is a pretty significant list. But it's pretty consistent with what we see in many other countries. And that's a good thing. Because we have some proven ways to address these sorts of challenges -- using traditional methods as well as technology-supported approaches. Again, see Assessing Learning Technology Readiness: A Pre-Service Case Study from Botswana if you're curious to learn about some of the specific ways in which we plan to apply various learning technologies.

I'm excited to see where this all goes...