At the closing ceremony of the 2017 SAAHE national conference in Potchefstroom, delegates adopted a conference declaration in the form of the Consensus Statement on Decentralised Training in the Health Professions, which was endorsed by the SAAHE national council.
This statement was the culmination of discussions over the last two years at SAAHE conferences and national workshops, driven by the Stellenbosch University Collaborative Capacity Enhancement with Districts (SUCCEED) project and the Forum for Rural Clinical Education (FORCE), a SAAHE special interest group which is being re-constituted as a special interest group for decentralised education, amongst others. The focus of these discussions has been on the importance and value of decentralised training in terms of transforming teaching and learning and in addressing the human resources for health needs of our country.
The consensus statement positions decentralised training as being part of the solution to the challenges we face in health care, and calls on all those involved – particularly education and service partners – to work together towards developing a shared vision for such training. It is part of a process that includes the development of a framework that will provide practical guidance for implementing decentralised training.
We invite SAAHE members to support the statement, to use it in advocating for decentralised training and to request organisations that you are part of to consider adding their formal endorsement of it. Please let us know about any such endorsements or formal institutional support via the comments field below.
