Quality Assurance in Certificate Course in Community Health for Nurses

Problem Statement

Government of India envisions transformation of sub-centers (SCs) to Health and Wellness Centers (HWCs) for strengthening primary healthcare system. Under this initiative, a total of 20,573 SCs and 3318 PHCs in Uttar Pradesh needs to be upgraded into HWCs through placement of a Community Health Officer (CHOs), who would undergo six-months Certificate Course in Community Health for Nurses (CCHN) developed by IGNOU at identified training sites known as Programme Study Centre (PSCs).To match this requirement of CHOs, UP needs to establish around 56 PSCs, of which 33are already operational.

Programme Description

After facing the challenges with the first batch and before increasing the number of PSCs a need was felt to develop a mechanism of quality assurance for operational PSCs.

State designed and implemented a MQA model in improving quality of Certificate course at the 33 Programme Study Centers. MQAs are carried out at all the functional PSCs since 2018, under which two MQA visits is conducted. MQA visits ensures infrastructural preparedness of the operational PSCs, timely completion of curriculum and thus, ensures the quality of teaching. It also establishes a structured feedback mechanism for students and academic counselors and periodic knowledge assessment of the students. Facilitates tracking system of fund utilization and creates an institutional mechanism of feedback to state for midcourse corrections.

Programme Outcomes

MQA model created mechanisms for sharing regular feedback with institutional and state level stakeholders for midcourse corrections and highlights key focus areas like infrastructural preparedness, quality of education imparted at the PSCs which includes the theory and clinical practice areas and adherence to financial and management practices. Thus, this model results in improving the CCHN result from 56% to 83% from July 2017 to July 2018.

Scalability

The Structured quality assurance mechanism model is scalable and helps in improving the quality and effectiveness of CCHN course.

Source : We Care Coffee Table Book - Good, Replicable and Innovative Practices 2019