Profession-specific training in health education

In 1975, the African Regional Health Education Centre (ARHEC) inaugurated two training programmes in health programmes in health education: a two-year postgraduate course leading to a master's degree, and a one-year course preparing for a non-graduate diploma. The purpose of the latter was to give advanced training and updating to experienced health personnel who had either received a diploma in health education some years before or had been functioning as health educators. This was intended to be a temporary course, to phase out in three years. However, due to its popularity, it was extended in spite of certain negative aspects, mainly the fact that new graduates often return to their former positions with little opportunity to utilize fully their new skills. Those who succeeded best tried to merge health education with their basic professional practice (for example, nursing with patient education). ARHEC decided therefore to modify the programme of its advanced diploma course, which now provides for the teaching of a basic core of health education subjects to all students, and includes three modules to which students are assigned according to their previous training and their future professional activities: community health education and primary health care; hospital-based patient and family health education; and school health education. The practical field work, which is an essential aspect of the course, is tailored to the interests of students in each module. Preliminary evaluation indicates that this programme provides a better response to the needs of students and their employers and eliminates the problem of two categories of health educators (diploma and masters level). It is intended to create other modules dealing with the media, occupational health, and so on.