Our goal
Contribute to the sustainable workforce development for eye health in Africa through collaborative institutional system strengthening and education.
About the project
Eye Education Foreign Exchanges Project (EYE-FX) is funded by Norwegian Agency for Exchange Cooperation (NOREC) is currently implemented by
- University of South-Eastern Norway (USN)
- African Eye Institute
- Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST) Kenya.
The EYE-FX project involves capacity building in optometric education in the context of eye health and global blindness prevention, strengthen education systems and affect change in the realm of global eye health. One of the main objectives of this programme is to support capacity development initiatives and expand cooperation to other institutions in Africa and the developing world.
Three rounds of professional exchanges of staff aimed at developing faculty or leaders for all involved partners
Round 1 - From February 2019 to February 2020
In round 1, EYE-FX sent six participants on exchanges:
- One administrative staff from BHVI on professional exchange to MMUST.
- One administrative staff from USN to BHVI
- Two faculty staff/opticians from USN to MMUST.
- Two faculty staff/opticians from MMUST to USN.
From left: Kenechukwu Obinna Ofochebe (from USN to BHVI), Guro Thomassen (from USN to MMUST), Ida Ihler (from USN to MMUST), Walter Yego (from MMUST to USN) and Sheilah Nangena (from MMUST to USN)
Round 2 - Progressing now
This will be an online round. Participants from round 1 are still involved in the development of the project. Since the introduction of the project, BHVI has undergone a reorganization, and is now African Eye Institute.
Project aims for e-R2:
Education of optometrist consists of both theoretical and practical work. The practical work is the one who suffers from clinical closure due to CV19. To enhance practical work, the former participants, lecturer with broad clinical experience and workshop related activities, want to create a better learning arena while students have short visits at the clinic, screening or even attending internet lectures focusing on patient management. The learning and test methods have to be related to available time and resources.
Administrative staff supporting lecturing staff and financial responsible staff, is important to create the continuous and sustainable routines around the learning activities. At the universities, there are formal applications to fill out if learning and exam changes from the original statement in the subject’s curricula. This administrative support and quality assurance is important to educate the best possible optometrists.
This round include former participants and the opportunities to involve them in creating good team efforts and achieving our goals. New participants will be presented as they are enrolled in the team.
Goals are the following:
- Enhance optometric clinical thinking among staff and students
- Enhance quality of all processes in the project, including financial procedures
- Enhance dissemination and marketing of international collaboration knowledge
The partners are grateful for fantastic NOREC support. The support is not only financial, but include human resources, participant courses, partner meetings and access to web pages and advices when necessary.
Contact
