Master of Public Health

MPH Program

Program Rationale

The purpose of the MPH program is to prepare experienced health officers with the additional competencies needed for planning, managing, and assessing the health services to be provided to the people of Rwanda.

In January 2000, the National University of Rwanda created a new School of Public Health to provide public health education, research, and practice services to improve the performance of the health systems in Rwanda. In designing this program, the SPH drew upon lessons from other African experiences of public health training, and in particular from the programs offered at ISED in Senegal and IPH/Makerere in Uganda. The proposed number of credits for the classroom and fieldwork components, and therefore for the whole MPH program, are in line with recognized MPH programs in Africa and elsewhere.

A special feature of the MPH program is that the initial intake of participants comprises District Health Officers (DHOs) who will maintain their current responsibilities while undertaking their academic training. A major advantage of this approach is that these participants will be able to immediately practice and put into action their new competencies. It is expected that the academic program will require absences from their posts during 3 to 4 weeks every three months and up to 50% of the student's time for fieldwork upon return to their posts.

Outcome

At the end of the MPH program, a graduate will be able to function as a public health specialist or manager of health services in accordance with international standards. He/she will be expected to be a leader in improving public health, oversee clinical health care delivery, promote health and prevent disease, and to be a good supervisor of health services.

Specifically, the MPH graduate will be expected to be able to interpret national health policy and use planning and quality management methods; carry out basic administration and manage resources; provide training and skills development for health personnel;

Graduates from the MPH program will be able to manage data collection and analysis for decision making; demonstrate communication skills and work within a team and promote intersectoral collaboration for health.

Be able to investigate and control epidemics; deal with public health aspects of clinical problems; and mobilize communities on health matters.

Specific admission criteria

The program is aimed at professionals in the socio-sanitary domain working at the district, project and program levels, as well as in the private sector with at least two years of experience. Candidates must hold a Bachelor’s degree in General Medicine, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Public Health, Biology, Sociology, Economics and other related fields.

General organization

The MPH training takes 2 academic years. It comprises 8 modules and a thesis. For the first 6 modules, the training is organized alternately between theoretical courses and field works for practice.

Every module is assessed through an individual written examination. In addition, for every module, the health professional has to write a synthetic paper on a subject proposed by the supervising team in order to assess his knowledge acquisition. The supervising team will give collectively a general mark to the document. The follow-up of the field study works is done by the SPH (through phone calls, electronic mails, meetings, and field supervisions).

Course schedule: