JINJA – Stakeholders in health education and training have called for a technical and training system that responds to labour market needs and places employers at the centre, as Uganda works to build a more competent health workforce.
The call was made at the 4th National Health Professionals’ Education, Training and Healthcare Conference, which is being held alongside health skills competitions in Jinja, bringing together stakeholders to strengthen health education and training in the country.
“We need a TVET system, a skills development system that is responsive to the labor market, and we must position employers at the center of the entire system,” said Ham Wilson Lukurwe, an Expert on Skills, Education, and Employment.
Dr. Safinah Kisu Museene, Commissioner for Health Education and Training in the Ministry of Education and Sports, said the shift towards employer-relevant skilling must be anchored in a competence-based curriculum.
“The health professional policy talks about a curriculum that is competence-based. We need a curriculum that is hands on, a curriculum that let students gain skills,” Dr Museene said.
She added that the conference was designed to connect classroom learning with practical application, and was being held in conjunction with a skills competition.
“This conference serves as a vital bridge between theory and practice, and it is organized together with a skills competition. We shall have skills competition in the areas of Nursing, Midwifery, Clinical Medicine, and Medical Laboratory Technology,” she said.
Dr Rosemary Byanyima, Executive Director of Mulago National Referral Hospital, said the demand for competence-based training was already reshaping how healthcare professionals are trained, with institutions moving away from lecture-based instruction towards fellowship training.
“There is a demand for competence based training, and that is why our training is moving away from just the lectures to fellowship training. Fellowship training is more of skills training because healthcare delivery is about hands on,” Dr Byanyima said.
