University Of Kwazulu Natal Health Sciences Faculty, The School of Health Sciences is unequivocally committed to advancing relevant health research and redressing the scarcity of healthcare professionals in the academic and healthcare sectors in the country, congruent with the imperatives of the National Departments of Education and Health, by producing undergraduate and postgraduate healthcare professionals, reflective of the country’s demographic profile, equipped with knowledge, skills, professional ethics and attitudes to achieve optimal health for all within the continuum of health promotion, prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment in the spirit of “ubuntu” and “batho pele”.
The School of Health Sciences headed by Professor Mahmoud Soliman trains Audiologists, Biokineticists, Dental Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Optometrists, Pharmacists, Physiotherapists and Speech Therapists, alleviating scarce skills and addressing vacancy rates, particularly within the public health sector.
As the sole provider of most Health Sciences professional education and training in KwaZulu-Natal, all programmes are well subscribed with the student body comprised of students from the whole of South Africa as well as southern and central Africa. The programmes in the Health Sciences aims to train Health Science professionals to play preventative, promotive, supportive, curative and rehabilitative roles in the public and private sectors. The degrees allow for specialisation and are three to four years in duration.
The School’s goals include:
- Underpinning and Overarching Research Ethos
To create and underpinning and overarching research ethos that facilitates credentialing up to PhD level, engenders the generation and dissemination of knowledge and innovation, enhances the recruitment and optimises the success of postgraduate students and inculcates research-led teaching and evidence-based practice.
- Excellence and Engagement in Teaching and Learning
To entrench excellence in teaching and quality student engagement with learning through contextualised, student-centred curricula with integrated academic development, innovative pedagogies and congruent assessment practices to translate equity of access into equity of outcome.
- Community Engagement as Beneficiary and Benefactor
To proactively institute and maintain mutually-beneficial engagement with select local, national and international communities to advance teaching, learning, research and scholarship in the School and to develop capacity on the African continent.
- Enabling and Collegial Academic Leadership and Management
To develop transformational leadership that engenders a collegial, nurturing, supportive academic environment that enables staff and students to realise their full potential in an operational framework epitomised by efficacy, efficiency and effectiveness.
- Optimise human, infrastructural and operational resources
To optimise resources to advance the academic endeavour by improving on drivers of the resource allocation model to right-size the academic, technical and administrative staff complements, acquire and enhance teaching, learning and research spaces, grow operational budgets, strategically utilise the earmarked grants to the Health Sciences and proactively pursue endowments/sponsorships.
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