Graduate Competencies Discussed at Workshop

BY: .

A workshop on the development of core competencies for undergraduate students in the College of Health Sciences was held at UKZN’s Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine.

The workshop discussed the key issue of: “What qualities a College of Health Sciences graduate at UKZN should embody when entering the work arena?”

Participants highlighted qualities such as social responsibility, accountability, cultural sensitivity, resourcefulness and creativity as these values and attitudes would ensure that a student’s horizons were broadened when they left university.

Acting Dean of Teaching and Learning in the College of Health Sciences (CHS), Dr Frasia Oosthuizen, said a document of the competencies would be used to help develop the characteristics in CHS graduates at UKZN.

Said Dean of the School of Health Sciences, Professor Sabiha Essack: ‘Education determines the competencies of our students and we would like to localise the context of what they are learning and will be practising. Competencies need to be seen across disciplines and through this document, we can identify what we are already implementing and what we will find useful and adopt.’

Essack placed an emphasis on educators as spheres of influence, saying ‘as educators, we choose what we want to teach our students from all the knowledge we possess. Part of a curriculum’s content is to contribute to different aspects of the student’s knowledge and in the end, the way in which we inculcate these values is not through what we teach, but how we teach it.’

The core competencies will be introduced into undergraduate education so students can be equipped with skills to become valuable members of their community.

-        Zakia Jeewa