Mr Faruk Abubakar, Secretary-General/ Registrar, Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, says the Health Public Health Training Initiative (NPHTI) has led to the improved accreditation status of benefiting nursing and midwifery schools.
Abubakar said this at the ongoing two-day In-Country Mid-Term Review meeting of NPHTI in Abuja, designed to provide an opportunity to discuss the broad policy and programmatic direction of the initiative.
NPHTI is a five-year Federal Government initiative supported by The Carter Centre, aimed at enhancing maternal and child health, using skilled frontline health workers in Nigeria.
Cue in audio (Abubakar on performance)
“ They (the schools) are doing wonderfully; because with our support, I want to acknowledge and to inform the centre, that schools have recorded increase in their intake, increase in their accreditation status, and also increase in their performance in their professional examinations.“
I want to say that with this support given to the states if it can be expanded, I believe that it will improve greatly human resources for health in the country.
“I want to believe that six institutions have the capacity to expand in terms of admission of students because of the numerous and wide range of equipment and training materials provided by the centre.
“I want to say that the council appreciate the initiative and hope, this will be sustained and expanded to other states so that more manpower will be trained for the benefits of the humanity of this country.’’
Cue out audio
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the benefiting states are: School of Midwifery, Sokoto; School of Nursing, Idi-Aba, Abeokuta and School of Nursing, Umologho, Obowo, Imo.
Others are Central School of Nursing and Midwifery, Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom and Plateau State College of Health Technology, Zawan, as well as Gombe State School of Health Technology, Kaltungo.
In his Presentation on NPHTI Invention in Sokoto, Mr Auwal Mabera, an official of State Ministry of Health, said the intervention had increased the academic performance of the students of School of Midwifery in the state.
Mabera, Human Resources Desk Officer, Department of Health, Planning Research and Statistics in the ministry, said the students were performing averagely in their examinations before the NPHITI intervention.
The official said the intervention had resulted in building the capacity of tutors in the college on the use of ICT and provisions of laptop computers for enhancing teaching and learning skills – pedagogical skills.
“It has resulted in provisions of adequate teaching and learning materials in classrooms, laboratory and demonstration rooms as well as the supply of large volumes of books to the college library.
“ It has also resulted in obtaining full accreditation from Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria,’’ he said.
According to him, the support has led to increased indexing capacity of students from 50 to 100 per intake for nursing and 50 to 75 for midwifery.
“ It has led to the improvement in students` academic performance both in their internal and external examinations as can be seen from the results released by the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria.”
Also, in his presentation on the progress of NPHTI in Ogun, Mr Oluwatoyin Adejobi, Director Nursing Services, Ogun State Ministry of Health said, the Initiative had resulted to partial accreditation of the School of Nursing, Idi-Aba, Abeokuta.
“This could be attributed to the inability of the institution to meet up with criteria like lack of adequate hostel facility for students and inadequate equipment and materials to aid teaching and learning among others.
“With the support of the state in complementing the intervention of the project, the institution has achieved provisional accreditation status with an admission capacity of 50 students.
“The intervention has removed the burden of insufficient equipment from the accreditation requirement list and hopefully looking forward to full accreditation.
“The achievements were made following the project interventions in the following strategic objectives areas,’’ the director said.
In addition, he said the use of technology in education training had empowered the tutors to use different teaching methods, aside from the traditional lecture method.
“The faculty members now confidently employ ICT in classroom teaching and assignments and test are now being given to students, using Google form and other online media assessment method,’’ Adejobi said.
NAN reports that no fewer than 84 health trainers, government representatives, partners and experts in human resources are attending the meeting from the six benefitting states and the FCT.