Country: Somalia
Closing date: 07 Nov 2018
- Overview
An experienced external medical consultant is required to work alongside an assessment team to evaluate medical universities in Somaliland. The assessment team will include representatives of the Somaliland education and health regulatory bodies and is accountable through the Medical Education Policy Task Force to the Somaliland Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health. This work will form a critical step in the regulation and quality assurance of Somaliland’s developing health and education sectors.
- Background
Somaliland is a self-declared but internationally unrecognised state in the Horn of Africa. A brutal conflict with the Somali Democratic Republic, ending in 1991, destroyed much of Somaliland’s infrastructure and displaced many of its people. Prior to the conflict, Somaliland had no higher education institutions. Individuals wishing to pursue higher education would have to study in Mogadishu, 1,500km from Somaliland’s capital, Hargeisa.
Somaliland has since emerged as a democracy, holding successive free elections, established key national institutions and remained peaceful and stable in an otherwise tumultuous region. The first university was established in 1998. Somaliland’s first Faculty of Medicine was established at Amoud University in 1999. It was followed by Hargeisa University in 2003-2004. Somaliland’s first medical cohort graduated in 2007.
Medical education in Somaliland started with extremely limited financial and human resources. The reason for establishing medical Universities was to produce well trained medical doctors for the country which had been devastated by war and lacked a functioning health system or adequate numbers of doctors and other health care workers.
In recent years many other colleges for medical education have been established, now nine in total and numbers of graduates from the medical schools are growing fast. However, the quality of medical education does not meet the required standards and there are concerns that the country may produce too many medical doctors who are not prepared for practice. Two governmental bodies were established to regulate the quality of the universities. One is the National Health Profession’s Commission; the other is the National Commission of Higher Education. These two bodies now have the power to assess the medical universities and ensure they meet the required standards to produce qualified medical doctors for the country.
A Medical Education Policy has recently been jointly approved by the Somaliland Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health. A key aim of the policy is to reduce the number of universities running medicine programmes through assessment based on the standards for basic medical education of the World Federation Medical Education applied to the country context. The policy suspends the opening of new medical schools.
The policy notes the urgent need to develop collaborative systems between the key institutions in medical education, in order to control the number of medical schools, improve the quality of education and regulate the numbers of medical graduates produced per year in line with national workforce planning, the capacity of clinical teaching facilities and clinical supervision availability.
3.RolePurpose
The aim of this exercise is to undertake a formal assessment of the nine medical schools in Somaliland. The assessment will be carried out in stages and the requirement of the independent consultant is set out below:
- Scope of Work/ Work Assignments:
The consultant will focus on:
1) Become familiar with relevant Somaliland legislation and policies including the mandates of the NHPC, NHCE and the Medical Education Policy.
2) Conduct joint training and familiarisation with the new assessment standards for the assessment team (note the standards and assessment tools have already been produced based on WFME standards)
3) Support the assessment team to compile the universities’ self-assessment reports and review and assess submitted documents in preparation for the assessment visit.,
4) Join the assessment team on field missions to evaluate in-depth the medical schools in all regions. It is anticipated that each visit will take place over two days.
5) Support the assessment team in writting a technical assessment analytical report outlining and categorizing the standards for each mmedical school and its capacity to continue the production of medical students.
6) Based on the assessment experience make feasible recommendations to further strengthen the technical implementation of the medical Education Policy.
Deliverables
· Completed training and orientation for the assessment team in the use of the updated standards and scoring tools;
· Interim report on the medical schools based on self-assessments and further information requested.
· Final assessment report of the universities submitted to the task force team and key government institutions and partners.
Qualifications or Specialized Knowledge/Experience Required:
Medical doctor with experience of assessment and preferably the establishment of medical schools, minimum 10 years
· Ability to work independently as well as part of a team and co-operate with stakeholders
6.Knowledge, Skills and Experience
· Minimum 10 years of professional work experience in the field of Medical Education and assessment
· Evidence of assessment in a field related to Medical Education.
· Computer literate in using Microsoft word, excel and internet.
· Excellent oral and written communication in English.
Personal Competencies
· Ability to exercise sound technical judgment.
· Substantive knowledge of the region and east Africa security
· Strong interpersonal skills-including but not limited to- the ability to work under pressure with restrictive timelines and to establish and maintain effective relationships with people
7.Remuneration and Timescales
A consultancy fee is available at a day rate of USD $300. It is envisaged that up to 45 days will be required. The anticipated start date is late November, early December with some flexibility around dates and timing depending on the availability of the consultant.
8.Consultancy Timeline
Activity description
Responsible person
Time line
Familiarization with relevant Somaliland legislation and policies including the mandates of the NHPC, NHCE and the Medical Education Policy
Consultant, THET
2days
Conduct joint training and familiarisation with the new assessment standards for the assessment team
Consultant
2 days
Support the assessment team to compile the universities’ self-assessment reports and review and assess submitted documents in preparation for the assessment visit.
Consultant, task force team
4 days
Join the assessment team on field missions to evaluate in-depth the medical schools in all regions
Consultant, taskforce team
25 days
Write technical report together with assessment team. The report should have assessment analytical report outlining and categorizing the standards for each medical school and its capacity to continue the production of medical students
Consultant, taskforce team
6 days
Based on the assessment evidence make feasible recommendations to further strengthen the technical implementation of the Medical Education Policy
Consultant
Travel days
Consultant
6 days
Total number of days
45 days
9.BACKGROUND READING
a. Somaliland Education Policy, 2015-2030
b. Somaliland Human resource planning, 2016-2021
c. Somaliland National Medical Education policy, 2018
d. Somaliland Health Policy,2010
e. Somaliland Health Workforce Survey, 2016
f. NHPC Standards
How to apply:
Interested individual consultants should submit a Cover letter, CV and detailed work schedule recruitment-som@thet.org (copied toDeman.LeDeaut@thet.org) not later than 7th November 2018 at 5.00pm EAT
Due to the nature of the assignment, mix skills/expertise consultant is encouraged. The selected experts/consultants must be ready to start the work within 2 weeks from date of official notification.