Support to the development of Faculties of Medicine

Project number: NPT/ETH/107

Health professionals are scarce in Ethiopia. Statistics indicate that there are approximately 2000 medical doctors on a population of over 70 million. In view of the millennium development goals pertaining to health, Ethiopia will have to invest massively in the education of health professionals. Ethiopia has embarked on a very ambitious programme to drastically expand the number of higher education institutes including medical
faculties. This project supports the Ethiopian government in this endeavor and aims to contribute to the improvement of the quality and relevance of medical education and services of two young the Colleges of Health Sciences of Mekelle University and Hawassa University.

The College of Health Sciences in Hawassa was established in 1997 and has two Faculties: the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Public
Health. The College of Health Sciences at Mekelle University was established in 2002 and has three schools: a School of Medicine, a School of Pharmacy and (since 2007) a School of Nursing. The School of Medicine has a 6-year program for medical students and a 3-year program for health officers. The college expects to graduate its first medical students in 2009.

In the period 2006-09 Hawassa plans to increase enrolment from 172 students to 345 and Mekelle from 230 students to 440. At the same time the faculties want to improve quality and relevance and explore options to adopt a more student centered approach.
In order to turn these ambitions into reality capacity needs to be strengthened in a number of areas. Therefore MUNDO supports the colleges through:
• upgrading the knowledge and skills of staff
• improving access to learning and teaching materials
• assist the faculties in developing a more student centered approach to education,
• improve the program evaluation system
• build capacity to conduct research
• improve exposure of students to high quality and relevant research
• develop capacity to use referral hospital as an academic teaching hospital.

Funding: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs / NPT program.

Mundo Project Manager: Heinz Grejin.