About us

Established in 2015, the Department of Health Sciences Education’s (HSE) primary aim is to enhance the quality of education across the Faculty and in all teaching facilities used by the Faculty. In assisting the Faculty’s Transformation agenda in educational programmes, our goal is to ensure that our graduates are prepared for contextually-relevant clinical practice and to help foster clinical excellence. Our establishment reflects UCT’s commitment to advancing the field of health sciences education (HSE) and generating scholarship relevant to Africa and other resource-constrained environments. This initiative is also in keeping with the Faculty’s adoption of the Primary Health Care Approach as its lead theme. We also strive to collaborate with other groupings engaged in HSE research, teaching and service. We provide the Faculty with an academic hub for inter-disciplinary and inter-professional offerings.

Our services

• Educational development which aligns education, training and health professional practice at both under- and postgraduate levels with all levels of health care delivery.
• Promotion of excellence in teaching.
• Learning and assessment at all sites of education and training.
• Development of innovative educational responses to the unique challenges faced in the South African and African contexts.

​​Divisions

Comprised of four divisions, our department is committed to doing and using contextually-relevant research to strengthen the science of educating and training health professionals.

• Clinical Skills Centre
• Education Development
• FHS Writing Lab
• Intervention Programmes (DHRS & MBChB)

Postgraduate programmes

• Postgraduate Diploma in Health Profession Education
• MPhil by dissertation
• PhD

Transformation in educational programmes

Since its inception in 2000, the EDU (now the Education Development Division) has had a mandate to assist the Faculty of Health Sciences with its Transformation agenda in educational programmes. The transformation agenda is three-pronged:

• Restructure educational programmes in order to graduate students who are appropriately prepared for practice in the transforming South African health system that is evolving toward Primary Health Care.
• Restructuring of educational programmes to take account of new educational and assessment methodologies emerging in the field of health sciences' education.
• Assist the faculty in achieving equity within the student population, ensuring throughput and success of students from previously excluded groupings and educationally under-resourced backgrounds.