School of Public Health Strengthen ties with AMREF International University Through the KNUST Africa Health Collaborative
The School of Public Health (SPH) through the African Health Collaborative has provided key insights into academic organisation, staffing models and language training to AMREF International University, Kenya, as the two institutions explore areas for collaboration in public health innovation
During the visit of AMREF International University, Prof. Peter Agyei-Baffour, Dean of the School of Public Health (SPH) highlighted the school’s structure and programs. He explained that the School of Public Health has six departments and offers 17 programs, including postgraduate degrees and a PhD, with plans to expand further.
In discussing institutional organisation, Beatrice Mukusa, Chief Strategy and Operations Officer at AMREF International University, also shared insights into AMREF’s own structure, outlining its departments, faculties and range of programmes.
Responding to questions on staffing from the AMREF delegation, Prof. Agyei-Baffour explained that KNUST employs about 32 full-time teaching staff at the School of Public Health, supported by a pool of adjunct lecturers drawn from industry, other academic institutions and within the university.
He also mentioned some of these staff are outsourced through interactions between students and industry partners.
Prof. Peter Agyei- Baffour also explained that the school regularly engages industry professionals through its student placements, using these partnerships to identify potential lecturers.
“Every year, we send our students out there to the industry partners to interact with them. And so, as we do that, we take that opportunity to also source for some people to come and handle some courses for us,” he added.
The discussion also highlighted the university’s language centre, which offers multiple languages to support pharmacy and other departments as needed. Sign language was identified as a core requirement for all students in the College of Health Sciences while other languages are offered as electives.
“The importance of language training was underscored by recent statistics showing that despite English being the main language of instruction, only a small proportion of nurses passed international English proficiency tests required for work in the UK and the US. This makes it necessary for the university to strengthen and supplement language education”.
“From that kind of statistics, then it becomes imperative to supplement it in the education that we are giving to our students,” he emphasized
