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Community-Based Education (CBE) is a means of achieving educational relevance to community needs and consequently of implementing a community-oriented education program. It consists of learning activities that use the community extensively as a learning environment, in which not only students but also teachers, members of the community, and other sectors are actively engaged throughout the educational experience.CBE, as an educational philosophy aims at developing professionals with problem identification and solving skills and positive attitudes to serve the society. Its main feature are
- It should be introduced very early in the educational process,
- It must continue through out the curriculum,
- It should relate to planned educational goals and objectives,
- The learning takes place within the community rather than in classroom setup
- It should get an appropriate time in the curriculum; a minimum of 20% of the study time is allocated for CBE activities,
- It is learner centred
- It follows the problem solving steps: students are expected to pass through the following steps during their community based
- identify the study community
- develop investigation tools
- gather data
- process and analyse data
- prioritise problems
- draw action plan
- carry out intervention
- evaluate and monitor the intervention
Jimma university is the national pioneer of community based higher education.
But through time other recently established universities have adopted the philosophy.
Even though, this philosophy was adopted by the health sciences at the beginning,
the philosophy was later used for all disciplines. All faculties of the university are
currently implementing the philosophy with each faculty having its own CBE coordinating office
In order to realize the philosophy JU uses the following strategies
- Community Based Training Program (CBTP)
- Team Training Program (TTP) (soon Developmental Team Training Program DTTP)
- Student Research Program (SRP)
In addition “CBE project and intervention office” and ”CBE data and GIS office”
assist the activities of the above three strategic arms
CBTP is one form of the strategies of CBE, where beginning from year I, students go to the community in a group and are attached for at least three weeks every academic year and engage themselves the learning activities. The same group of students will be assigned to the same locality so that knowing the exact problems of the locality, students can make a difference by working together with the community and stakeholders.
CBTP during pre-graduating years runs for 2,3 and 4 years for academic programs that take 3,4 and 5 years respectively. Each phase has specifically defined educational objectives. During each phase, students as a group (10-12) are assigned to urban, semi-urban or rural communities with an approximate population of 600-10,000. The areas are identified by the coordinating office and are located within 50 km radius from the university.
Three to five teaching staff members supervise each group. Each faculty designs in what sort of community based studies students will be engaged and when they plan, it is in such that it will addresses the real problems of the community and relates to the students’ class room teaching and career. The developmental work plan enable students to use locally available resources and utilize appropriate technology. The CBE office of each faculty in collaboration with the central CBE coordination office and concerned offices plans, put up schedules and mobilizes students in group and assist in the in each step in the problem solving approach. In this program, students are supposed to pass through the problem solving steps, i.e. from problem identification to implementation and evaluation. The community actively participates in each of the steps
The different activities in each phase of CBTP include
- Lecture on relevant topics
- Orientation to the phase CBTP
- Grouping and group discussion with supervisors
- Development of methods to be followed during the different phases of the program and data collection instruments
- Collection of relevant materials and equipment for the attachment
- Introduction to community and community leaders and community tracking
- Data collection, processing and analysis
- Identification and prioritization of problems and drawing of feasible action plans, (implement and evaluate with the community and other sectors whenever possible)
- Report writing, rehearsal and presentation in symposium
- Reporting of findings back to the community and other relevant sectors
Graduating students from different health categories are posted as a team (each team consists of 20-30 students) in six different health centers. The program aims to enable students to work as a members of a health team in solving community health problems by applying the knowledge and skills of one’s profession and integrating these with the knowledge and skills of other members of the team. It also helps students to familiarize themselves to the primary health care units
Health centers in the four Woredas / districts with approximately 50 kilometers distance from the main campus of Jimma University have been used for team training sites since 1990. Currently the team-training site is increased to six. Team Training Program covers more than 57% of the population of the Zone
|
Woredas |
Training Health Center |
Distance in kilometer from JU |
| 1 |
Jimma |
Jimma THC |
3 Kms |
| 2 |
Kersa |
Serbo THC |
22 Kms |
| 3 |
Omonada |
Asendabo THC |
55 Kms |
| 4 |
Gomma |
Agaro THC |
45 Kms |
| 5 |
Mana |
Yebu THC |
25 kms |
| 6 |
Seka-Chekorsa |
Shebe THC |
55 kms |
- Communicable disease control through Immunization, Disease outbreak investigation and promotion of early detection and treatment of communicable diseases
- Promotion of nutrition for under five children
- Provision curative and rehabilitative services through Inpatient and outpatient services
- Improvement of environmental health with emphasis on provision of safe and adequate water, proper disposal of wastes, vector control, food and beverage sanitation including inspection
- Providing maternal and child health services
- Collection, analysis and interpretation of health service statistics
- Improvement of the health service management of the districts/Woredas and all health facility that are available in the Woredas
- Provision of continuing education for health center staff, taditional birth attendants, community health agents, anti-AIDS clubs, food handlers
- Help maintain adequate quantity as well as quality of essential drugs according to the national drug list
- Provision of basic laboratory services
TTP currently encompasses primarily health science students, however the problems facing the development of our societies and communities are multifaceted. To further the success of TTP it will need a concerted and integrated effort of all disciplines.
Thus, TTP will have a developmental team comprising graduating students from the Faculties of Business and Economics, Technology, Agriculture, Education, law and others in addition to the health sciences. They will engage themselves in developmental works in the areas of health, education, agriculture, technology, cottage industries and good governance, and will be assigned to a local community ('woreda') for two months. Therefore, DTTP will enables students to work in a team with different professionals to make a difference in development.
The student research program(SRP) is designed to enable each degree student to design, conduct an operational research and write a scientific report. By doing so students develop critical thinking capacity and problem solving skill
All degree program students from all faculties of the university are required to do an independent research work. This enables the students to be skilled researchers. While doing their research they gain knowledge on problem identification, data collection, data analyses, proposing solutions and implementation. Just like CBTP and TTP/DTTP, SRP is a component of CBE which follows sound and ethical procedures aiming at solving the prevailing problems of the community in action oriented manner.
The research projects serve as springboard for future elaborated research. Research advisors are assigned for each student researcher. All degree students under take a research activity as requirement course for graduation. At the end of each year, the university prepares a symposium where the three best researches (as selected by the relevant faculty staff) of each department/school will be presented and awarded. In addition abstracts of all students are compiled and distributed to departments and libraries of Jimma University as well as other universities.
As a principle, student research should be an individual work. However, if there are obstacles, group researches may be undertaken in the future .
- Problem oriented
- Community based
- Scientifically and ethically acceptable
- Feasible and action oriented
- To train professionals in diverse fields of studies in a community setting in such a way that the students will be responsive to the needs of the community,
- To encourage a team approach in treating societal problems,
- To work with the local communities with greater conviction,
- To undertake problem-based research activities which take into consideration the priority needs of the community and enhance research undertaking skill.
Community Based Education as a philosophy of the University has a prominent place in its organizational structure. The coordination of CBE activities is managed by a higher office, i.e. central CBE office, that has a decision-making role and a link between the faculties, the management, the community and development sectors. The central office is supported by a standing committee that is composed of faculties CBE heads
Each faculty appoints its own CBE head who is directly responsible to run the faculty community based training program and students’ research activities. Among the strategies of CBE Team Training program is run by the central CBE directly as depicted in the organogram. Central CBTP and SRP offices assist the faculty level CBE heads in the conduct of the field and research activities as the decentralization is recent and there is a need to assist the faculties.
In addition CBE has two offices that facilitate the field activities. These are “CBE project and intervention office” and ”CBE data and GIS office”
Mainly focuses on the implementation and follow up of intervention activities that are planned by students. This is done through active participation of the students, the community and other stake holders. Use of appropriate technology is emphasized
This is a relatively young and growing wing of CBE established with the main aim of assisting the activities of the other strategies, CBTP, TTP- DTTP, and SRP in regards of spatial digital data acquisition, management, analysis, and display.
- Enhances data collection, compilation, management, automation, retrieval, query, analysis , and display
- Substitutes traditional method of data storage on paper
- Simplifies data updating
- Motivates further research undertakings
- Enhances optimal utilization of information about the community
- Saves time and money
- Refresher course on basic GIS concepts for five GIS-aware staff members
- Compilation of ArcView ArcGIS training manual
- Basic hands-on training for some staff members and post-grads of the Faculty of Public Health
- Development of GIS for two model communities (Agaro and Serbo towns)
- Procurement of some GIS packages like ArcView ArcGIS 9 software and a GPS
- Enhancing the roles that GIS is playing within the different CBE strategies of the university
- Promoting and creating more and more awareness about GIS to academic- staff, students, and other stakeholders in the surroundings of JU
- Establishing GIS laboratory that can serve all interested stakeholders in their academic as well as research activities
- Enabling and encouraging students to collect, store, retrieve, and analyse geo-referenced data during their community attachment
CBE is an innovative educational approach is concerned about the needs of a society. It is trying to address the needs of society through a developmental approach by producing professionals responsive to the developmental needs of the community. The resource need to accomplish its task is huge and testing.
- Primarily, academic staff who is open-minded and with positive attitude to serve the society.
- Active community members, respected community individuals, and leaders
- Community resources at large be it material or human power are used in intervention
- Governmental budgetary plan include expenses to mobilize the major teaching and learning activities.
- Several projects are being prepared to initiate and involve NGO’s in funding the specific community development sectors planned by the university community (students and supervisors).
* CBE should get priority in all logistic support. In general various resource are required to run CBE which are beyond the university resource. For this, proper scheme should be designed, and are being designed to involve the different stakeholders for development in society so that responsibilities could be shared collectively. The university invites stakeholders ready to assist CBE through availing of financial and other resources
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