Developing the Master's programme

What a coincidence that just before heading to exchange to Swaziland, I was involved to seminar ''Christian Values and Hope in Nursing'' of my school Diak, where the topic of the workshop which I facilitated was ''Love and forgiveness as a value at the master programme'', which will start in 2014; and right on the first day at University of Swaziland has a workshop together with municipal and ministry representatives and other specialists about formalizing the final curriculum of Master programme in Environmental Health for the suggestion for the stakeholders .

To give a little background, in 2009, the Africa Health Workforce Observatory noted that Swaziland still fell short  of World Health Organization Standards  with respect to the ratio of health service providers per capita, especially in terms of environmental and occupational health workers, due to brain drain, attrition and inadequate training programmes. The ever-growing challenges of industrialization, urbanization and the rapid technological advances in the global community have resulted in more complex and challenging environmental health problems.

The department of Environmental Health Science in the Faculty of Health Sciences is a centre of excellence for teaching, research, and community services in the field of environmental heath in Swaziland. Now they are in a process of transforming the old 5 year B.Sc. Environmental Health degree programme into 4 B.Sc programmes, namely B.Sc. Environmental Health Science, B.Sc. Environmental Management and Water Resources, B.Sc. Environmental, Management and Occupational Health and B.Sc. Environmental Health and Food Science.  Top of this the proposed M.Sc. programme was motivated by the need for highly trained cadres in Environmental Health in Swaziland. The aim of the Master's programme is to develop environmental health professionals who are able to work independently or with minimum supervision in addressing current and emerging environmental challenges in Swaziland, the SADC region, and the world at large.

I'm looking forward to hear how the suggestions will be welcomed and how soon the programme can be started. Swaziland is really struggling with lack of qualified workers in environmental health and more organized actions are needed. Meanwhile I'm eagerly waiting for the first lesson on this area of expertice of the Faculty of Health of UNISWA.