Education Development center

Address: 7^Th floor, new building, school of medicine, Zand street

Tel fax: +98 711 2333064

Email :edc@sums.ac.ir

Objectives:

The main objective of this center is quality improvement of medical education curricula in order to improve the efficiency of the personnel in meeting the community’s requirements.

History:

 In 1969, WHO designed an international teacher training program as suggested by its counselors. In this project, 8 centers were selected to train teachers in their own area.
Shiraz University was selected as RTT center in eastern Mediterranean area which was established in 1972 by Dr Taba, the management of eastern Mediterranean area.

The main objective of this center was designing and improving teaching methods, planning, and evaluation of affiliated medical groups in Iran and eastern Mediterranean area.
 Close collaboration with WHO centers had a considerable impact on the development of proper education in Iran’s universities. The main goal of this center is to change the passive educational system into self- education (active education). The specialized activities of this center in coordination with WHO are as the following:

1-      Educational programs including arrangement of workshops and fellowships for local academic staff and those in the eastern Mediterranean area. During 3 years, about 420 medical and paramedical staff participated in 30 different institutions in 7 countries in eastern Mediterranean area, USA, and England for educational programs. One of the outcomes of these programs was making Shiraz University and its activities known among other universities and WHO centers in nearby countries.

2-      Managing the health staff projects in rural areas.

3-      Training experts for establishing a center for educational media.

4-      Publications: including preparation of magazines and textbooks.

5-      Continuing education of Shiraz University academic staff first and then for eastern Mediterranean academic staff.

6-      Other activities: arranging conferences, seminars and the first local educational workshop in 1972 in Shiraz in collaboration with the staff of EDC centers in Shiraz and Illinois Universities.

In 1973, Medical education department in collaboration with this center and under the supervision of WHO started health staff project in rural areas and in 1974, an assessment committee in which the managers of EDC centers and the heads of different departments in medical school participated was founded.

This committee accepted the preparation, implementation and a survey of residency comprehensive exam.

Then, a project started for development of the center including:

-    Offering medical education fellowships

-          Establishing evaluation centers: assessment of students, courses, syllabus and methodology

-          Establishing Educational Resource Center (ERC): This center was established in 1996 and transferred to the present building due to the need for proper place and equipment.

-          Educational resource center was set up aiming at making the academic staff aware of educational process using instructional aids and requisite equipment, designing a pattern for universities in Iran and eastern Mediterranean area.

* Education Development Center

At present based on WHO design about the application of educational technology in medicine, this center does its activities in the following fields:

1-Curriculum planning

2-Educational skills Development

3-Educational evaluation

4-Educational economy & policy

5-Research in education

6-Clinical skill lab

Table6- 1: Academic Staff in Education Development Center

*Director

Table6- 2: Expert Staff in Education Development Center