Establishment of a Study Materials Development and Production Centre - Zambia

To address the problem of the lack of standardized good quality study materials the General Nursing Council Zambia (GNCZ) will establish a “Study Materials Development and Production Centre” that will be responsible for the production and distribution of standardised curricula and appropriate teaching and study materials for training of nurses and midwives. The localized study and teaching materials is based on enhancement of the collectively developed tutor activity outline by experts and tutors. The local teaching materials could consist of lecture notes in the form of presentations illustrated with photo materials, video productions to demonstrate certain topics, e-Learning materials (in a later phase) and links to relevant websites.

The project will start with a pilot phase where five schools will work together with the “Study Materials Development and Production Centre” in the development, review and deployment of the materials. After the pilot phase the project will be evaluated before it will be scaled up to all Zambian nursing and midwifery schools, either governmental or non-governmental.

Currently, the Zambian health sector is faced with a critical shortage of appropriately trained human resources for health (HRH).  In this respect, the Government, through the National Health Strategic Plan 2006-2010 (NHSP) and the health chapter of the Fifth National Development Plan (FNDP) have prioritised the resolution of the HRH crisis. To this effect, a comprehensive HRHSP has been developed, which has articulated the problem, outlined the objectives and proposed appropriate strategies aimed at resolving the crisis.  One of the main strategies proposed, is that of scaling up the numbers and quality of graduates from health training institutions.

The main objective of this project is to develop and maintain internal capacity for the GNC to produce standardised, appropriate and comprehensive teaching and learning materials to meet demand for all nursing and midwifery programmes in Zambia, so as to ensure uniform standards of teaching, learning and evaluation of students in all training institutions.

The outcome of the project is the development of good quality localised standard teaching material. The main project outputs will include:

• Study Materials Development and Production Centre in place:
• Equipment installed
• Staff identified and appointed

• GNC Staff that have the capacity to develop and produce study materials:
• Number of staff trained

• Number of schools that have the awareness and capacity to use the developed materials:
• Number of teachers trained
• Number of awareness sessions per school with management and teachers

• Standardized study material that has been developed:
• Number of video’s, power point presentations and DVDs produced, containing standardised lecture notes on respective nursing and midwifery training programmes, for use by course tutors
• Number of video’s, power point presentations and DVDs produced, containing standardised recommended learning and study materials, on different subjects, for students
• Number of e-Learning modules developed (phase 2) (e-Learning will be gradually developed)

The project is being promoted by the GNC, which is a regulatory statutory board under MOH. GNC is the only institution mandated by MOH to set and regulate standards of training and practice for the nursing and midwifery professions in Zambia.

GNC is structured to operate as a semi-autonomous institution and comprises of:

• Council Board of Directors
• GNC Secretariat
• GNC Project Team