Indian Colleges, HCC Launch Project to Train Health Science Workers

Educators from several institutions of higher learning in Delhi, India, journeyed to Houston to spend most of June with their colleagues at Houston Community College's Health Science Center developing a partnership which will, in the end, benefit students in both cities.

The Indian educators came from the prominent health career schools in Delhi. HCC's Health Science Center brings together in one building - the Dr. John B. Coleman Building on the Texas Medical Center campus - the 17 health career programs offered by HCC.

"Essentially, we wanted to visit here and study programs that are more skill-based than ours," said Dr. S. Neelamegham, professor and chairman of career oriented programs at the University of Delhi. "We simply do not have this type of focused skill training. Our graduates have a degree but when they begin work, they are also beginning their clinical education. Our present teaching practices are more didactic and lack in-depth practical experience."

The joint project, Supporting Educational Programs in India, is funded by a two-year $100,000 grant from the association Liaison Office and the U. S. Agency for International Development. The delegation, along with HCC faculty and staff, worked toward developing need-based, job-oriented curricula in family and child welfare, HIV/AIDS, nutrition and health management.

"In India, the emphasis is on the degree and the academics," said Norma Perez, director of the health science center programs. "We are more involved in the application. Our students need to do something, use their academic work in the clinical setting." Ultimately, the Indian educators who visited HCC in June hope that what they saw and learned here will benefit their students in India by enabling them to enter the workforce earlier and more clinically adept.

One example of what the Indian educators learned is the module put together by Carla Tyson, director of the health information technology program at HCC. The health information course for the visiting Indians included health care delivery systems, health care statistics, quality assurance, health data, legal and ethical issues of health information technology and coding and reimbursement methodologies - course work that might extend the typical Indian bachelor's program from three years to a four-year honor program.

"Of course another benefit is this cross-cultural exchange, which we hope will benefit the Houston Community College students and their faculty," said Dr. Adarch Sharma, director of the National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development in Delhi. "The exposure to social issues and the different disciplines and methods of instruction is enlightening and also prepares us to think about this kind of program on a global basis."

"What has most impressed me while I have been here is that the training is geared to specific needs," said Dr. Satinder Bajaj, director of Lady Irwin College and head of the department of home science at the University of Delhi. "The focus - addressing needs with that exact skill that's needed - is very impressive here. That's what is needed with us, for our post graduates to find jobs. The other point also is that this sort of curriculum can and should lead to an international accreditation. That's worth pursuing and we should do it."

"It was a learning process for all of us," Norma Perez reflected. "As they learned more, we saw more to offer them. And everything `clicked' - especially the notion of creating something international in scope."

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