Warm Greetings from the President, AHPE!
It gives me great pleasure and I feel honoured by the trust you have reposed on me to be your President for the year 2017.
Being a voluntary Non-Government Organization, the success of the organization depends on the full-hearted support and contributions by members and the esteemed Executive Committee members of the AHPE to further the cause of improving the quality of Health Professions Education in India.
For this purpose a ‘Needs Assessment’ exercise was conducted to find out what the expectations of the HPE faculty are that they expect AHPE to deliver. Thanks to Dr. Anshu’s efforts at doing a qualitative analysis of the responses, the primary areas of focus were identified as Capacity building through Faculty Development Programs (including through the NCHPE and formation of Regional centers), making available a repository of evidence-based good practices through website and newsletters/ journal, producing guidelines and standards for measuring and improving quality of education through accreditation of master trainers, Faculty Development/ CPD programs etc. as well as development of criteria for recognizing efforts of teachers and rewarding them within institutions and across the regions/ country (Scholarship of Teaching and other types of educational scholarships).
Through leadership in these fields and generating the evidence, we can influence policy and do advocacy with regulatory and accrediting agencies related to HPE. Various suggestions were also received as to how we can achieve this through formation of Special Interest Groups (SIG) in areas like competency based approach to education, distance/blended learning using IT resources, inter-professional education, educational research, program evaluation, student assessment including exit / licensing exams etc. When these SIGs come out with authoritative evidence-based recommendations that are content and context specific responding to local needs and get peer reviewed and approved by AHPE, it will serve as an authoritative resource for decision makers to arrive at policy decisions within the country.
I also encourage you to register for the NCHPE 2017 at Jorhat, Assam to enlarge your network of friends within the community of practice in India. Best wishes for success in all your academic endeavors in the coming months.
Dr Thomas V Chacko