Politics, education and curriculum

Dental undergraduate training must be thoroughly planned if a nation is to ensure that the resulting manpower resource is of use in tackling the particular problems of that country. Preliminary epidemiological information should be considered an essential component of this planning for the educational curriculum. It is only in this way that manpower may be trained to possess appropriate skills for preventing and treating existing and predicted types and levels of oral diseases. Experiences in Africa, where political and economic considerations are also important factors, are described with reference to the developed and developing worlds.