The Rural Area Project (RAP) in Thailand: curriculum development

The Rural Area Project is a collaborative developmental project of Chulalongkorn University and the Ministry of Public Health in Thailand. The main objective of the project is to increase the number of doctors in the country in such a way that they would be posted in rural districts and have appropriate knowledge, skill and attitude for rural practice. Curriculum development for the project has been carried out to serve the project objective as well as to ensure that the project graduates are accepted as qualified doctors. Several principles and assumptions have been used as strategies in the developmental process. They include co-operative participation in curricular planning, systematic formulation of educational objectives, organization of common courses, utilization of existing health services, planning innovative courses in community medicine and general practice, extensive use of self-instructional modules, efficient use of teachers' time and planned gradual delegation of responsibility to students.