Experts at eLearning Africa 2011 suggested that eLearning could bridge the alarming skills gap that exists between nurses trained in different disciplines. Some pointed to successful partnerships with NGOs in East Africa. Others discussed scale and replicability in African medical training.

The question of content and related issues including information access and development was a key theme of the session ‘What contribution can eLearning make towards confronting the skills challenge of Africa’s health sector?’

Mohamed Labib discussed HSO.info, a well-resourced website with expert free health sciences information. The vision is to make this relevant and available to all health workers. The importance of partnerships was noted here, both south-south and north-south. The example provided was the University Teaching Hospital in Zambia, partnering with the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

The session included two presentations from the Tanzanian Training Centre for International Health (TTCIH). Angelo Nyamtema pointed out the severe shortage of healthcare workers in Tanzania and discussed the progress being made in developing an eLearning training programme, including their approach to pedagogical design and course structuring.

Diana Mukami discussed the African Medical and Research Foundation’s successful nurse upgrading programme via eLearning. Since its inception nearly six years ago, the programme – a classic public-private partnership – has enrolled 7000 nurses across 108 eCentres in Kenya and graduated over 2000 nurses. It comprises General Nursing, Reproductive Health, Community Health and Specialised Areas.

(Source: eLearning Africa)
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