Curriculum and Course Content
TThe programme leading to the MPH degree is one calendar year in duration. The course is designed to encourage a sequential pursuit of public health education. The course is divided into three blocks.
Block I lasts 6 months months and consists of core courses necessary to develop fundamental competencies in public health, embracing the disciplines of medical anthropology, epidemiology and bio-statistics, qualitative and quantitative research methods, health system management, health economics and health care financing and environment and health. The entire period will take place in the residential setting of BRAC training center in Savar, approximately one-hour drive from the capital city Dhaka.
Block II lasts 3 and half months and deals with public health practice during which several short courses are offered, covering specific areas of public health practice: epidemiology and control of infectious diseases, public health nutrition, aging and health, reproductive health, and health communication.
Block III lasts 2 and half months and consists of an independent study in a chosen public health programme or problem that students will carry out. The primary objective of this portion of the program is to enable students demonstrate ability to synthesize and integrate knowledge gained in course work and other learning experiences through a culminating field work studying a public health problem or activity. Students are expected to identify a topic they wish to study early on during the year and certainly by the end of the first semester. The outcome will be a dissertation to be submitted in partial fulfillment for the MPH degree. Detail guidelines for the independent study will be provided later on.
Health and Development Seminars will take place through out the academic year and exploit the rich resources of experts with experience from home & abroad to speak on different issues related to public health. All students have to be present to share and enrich their knowledge.
Teaching/Learning Methods
The structure of the teaching programme will be problem-oriented employing a problem case study approach whenever possible, with a minimum of didactic teaching. Basic knowledge of a subject will require guided reading and extensive exposure to relevant literature will be provided. The course work will build on significant health problems faced in Bangladesh and similar countries. The problems will draw students into problem solving thinking and dialogue with peers. Numerous opportunities for presentation of problem analysis will assure that students are familiar and comfortable with various communication techniques.
Central to each and every course is exposure to field situations and people engaged in addressing the problem under study. Students will be introduced to key concepts, scientific basis, social and cultural experience and relevant measuring techniques that underlie each issue to be considered before proceeding with the problem-oriented experiential process in the field. It is this constant interchange between the classroom and field realities that make the BRAC SPH uniquely rich and formative. While guided by qualified faculty and structured programmes, extensive learning will occur from a bottom-up approach to education as students and faculty learn from peripheral development workers and the community who, both define the problems and implement the responses.
Course work will be modular, allowing for integrated team teaching and reinforcement with relevant field visits and projects. This approach will enable visiting expert teaching staff to provide intensive exposure of students to their expertise over a relatively brief period thereby enabling the school to call on experienced partner institutions to participate in teaching. Teams for each module will comprise an experienced academician, often from overseas, one or more counterpart teachers from BRAC SPH, relevant adjunct faculty drawn from BRAC, icddr,b and other local institutions, and local practitioners of public health and development. Field trips during course work will be frequent to local areas while longer experience will involve posting away from campus for a week or more at a time. In these cases, students will work in small groups assuring fluency in language, orientation to culture and regular guidance visits by faculty.
The relationship between BRAC SPH, BRAC and icddr,b is seen as a seamless entity under the umbrella of BRAC University, enabling students to be exposed to the field programmes, research, libraries and staff of these institutions. From the initial Core Modules (Block I and II) through the research and writing of the dissertation, students will be encouraged to draw on the wide resources of these renowned institutions, as well as partner faculties from abroad, both in direct teaching and by the internet. Thus, the James P. Grant School of Public Health is both a real and virtual educational entity with global reach.
