Evaluating community-based medical education programmes in Africa: A workshop report

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Public Health
• Program Evaluation

Background:

• The Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) aims to enhance medical education quality in Africa.
• MEPI programs often incorporate community-based education (CBE) components.
• CBE includes elements like community placements and research in underserved areas.

Purpose of the Study:

• To share best practices for evaluating community-based education (CBE) within the African context.
• To identify effective approaches for CBE evaluation in MEPI programs.
• To strengthen the network of CBE evaluation collaborators.

Main Methods:

• A workshop was conducted by CapacityPlus and the MEPI Coordinating Center.
• Participants developed logic models to guide program evaluation.
• Focus was placed on data collection, sampling, analysis, and reporting for CBE evaluation.

Main Results:

• All participating schools developed draft evaluation plans for their CBE programs.
• Participants committed to ongoing communication and collaboration.
• Nine schools initiated the implementation of their evaluation plans post-workshop.

Conclusions:

• The workshop highlighted a strong interest in enhancing CBE evaluation.
• There is a recognized need for developing and disseminating contextually relevant evaluation tools and approaches for Africa.