Southpac News

RH CERTIFICATE COURSE

An 11-week Certificate Course on Reproductive Health for service providers will be officially launched by the Dean of the Fiji School of Medicine and the UNFPA Representative of the Pacific Sub-Regional Office in Fiji, on 14 July 1999. Specifically designed for Pacific Island health personnel, the course consists of fourteen modules on reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health. There will be a variety of learning activities employed, including lectures, tutorials, group exercises, case discussions, field visits, and hands-on presentations.

The Certificate Course is the anchor activity in the Reproductive Health Training Programme, a $575,000 sub-regional project, at the Fiji School of Medicine, funded by UNFPA in the 1998-2001 cycle.

Thirty-six health personnel from seven priority Pacific Island Countries will be trained under the Certificate Course, which is expected to be run twice a year during the project period, to provide quality reproductive health services in their countries. However, in 1999, the inaugural course of 11 weeks has been designed for public health nurses and health educators. Seventeen participants from Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu have been selected for the course to be conducted from 14 July to 29 September 1999. Teaching faculty will be drawn from the Fiji School of Medicine, non-governmental organizations, and United Nations agencies.

DISTANCE LEARNING ON POPULATION

In May, Dr. Nafis Sadik, Executive Director, announced that UNFPA is sponsoring a new international project on training and learning on population issues to help countries build their own training capacity. The project, entitled "Distance Learning System on Population Issues", is a joint undertaking between the UNFPA and the United Nations Staff College (UNSC) in Turin, Italy, in close collaboration with the Open University in the United Kingdom. Funding for the project has been provided by the United Nations Foundation.

To meet the need for trained personnel in various aspects of population issues and policies, the three-year project will establish a global and permanent system of training, using the Distance Learning concept. This system will use electronic and communication facilities as the principal modes of interaction between trainers and trainees in UNFPA programme countries. The Distance Learning (DL) system will initially be based on the UNFPA field offices and the 8 Country Support Teams as a ready-made infrastructure for the implementation of the Distance Learning programme on Population Issues using computer mediated communication.

Participants at a recent training course at the FSM Training Centre

The first courses will start early next year and are likely to be on reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health. When a participant has been registered for a course, she or he will be sent the course materials. This may be in the form of audio and video cassettes, CD-ROMs, text to be downloaded from a web-site, or printed material. The typical DL-course will consist of about 40 hours of work and will take between 6-8 weeks. It will be up to each participant to schedule her study hours according to the individual’s work situation. Contact between course tutor and participant will, however, be at a distance, through the Internet, by telephone, fax, or postal services.

This innovative project is based at the UNSC in Turin. During 14-18 December 1998, Dr. Salesi Katoanga, CST Adviser on Reproductive Health, was invited to participate, together with colleagues from other Country Support Teams, in a "Design Workshop for a UNFPA Course on Reproductive Health" at the UNSC in Turin. He was once again invited to attend the second design workshop in Turin on 14-18 June, 1999, to finalize the module on reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health.

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