MPH Program at IUBAT in final review

In early summer 2021, the University Grants Commission returned our initial MPH application with reviewer’s comments. Under the leadership of IUBAT Prof. Dr. Hasnat Alamgir, BHP volunteers John Richards, Nazmul Huda and Alex Berland made the necessary revisions and re-submitted the application. In this photo, we are using a systems-thinking approach to discuss the course on maternal health services in Bangladesh. Due to the Covid pandemic we don’t expect formal student recruitment until late 2021, aiming for a program start in January 2022.

BHP activities for 2021

BHP support for the IUBAT College of Nursing continued during 2020. We still welcome volunteers to support the local faculty, especially with clinical supervision. However, our focus has been “behind the scenes” partly due to the pandemic restrictions and also to advance several exciting new developments:

1. Working with Nurses International, we have been converting the BScN curriculum to an Open Educational Resource. You can read about this in several publications.

2. During 2020 we worked with IUBAT faculty to develop a proposal for a Masters in Public Health Program. This will create a career pathway for nurses and other health care professionals. The national regulator is now reviewing the application, so we hope that students will be admitted later in 2021.

3. Working with another NGO, Oasis for Posterity, we have supported development of a vocational college in a rural area of northern Bangladesh. We hope to offer a training program for community health workers and a primary care clinic that can also be used for training BScN and MPH students.

As always, we welcome volunteer contributions and involvement in these activities, whether working from home or in Bangladesh. Donations are always welcome.

Open Education Resources now available

When BHP volunteers helped IUBAT build the College of Nursing starting in 2003, we had to create all the learning resources ourselves. We wrote the course lectures and exams based on current textbooks in various subjects so that the syllabus meets the requirements of the nursing councils in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. Each semester successive groups of visiting faculty volunteers updated and improved the content. Fifteen years later, that curriculum has been tested by volunteers with current clinical and teaching experience and used with many batches of students. We are now partnering with Nurses International, a US-based NGO to make these digitized materials available as Open Education Resources [OER], meaning everything can be downloaded, used and adapted without cost under the Creative Commons Licensing system. The intended audience is junior nurse educators who may need support as they begin their teaching careers. Please use the Nurses International link to access the materials or contact BHP if you would like to volunteer with further OER development.