Peoples-uni degrees for the developing world

By Professor Dick Heller

Peoples-uni provides low-cost capacity building in public health for health professionals in developing countries. The plan to develop and deliver online courses for this outside the traditional university sector began in 2006 and now involves course authors and tutors from more than 30 countries. 

There are massive public health problems in developing countries. To identify these and help solve them to improve the health of these populations requires building up capacity through higher education. But opportunities for this are insufficient in developing countries and getting degrees from developed countries expensive.

The Peoples-uni concept is to offer higher education in public health for practitioners in developing countries at a low cost. This is possible through Internet-based courses using Open Education Resource (OER) and delivery mechanisms, all run by volunteers.

The organisation developed through discussions with interested individuals, the creation of advisory groups, registration as a charity in the UK and the appointment of trustees. People who could support and develop the IT infrastructure or act as tutors to develop and deliver the educational programme volunteered. Following discussions with people in developing countries, it was decided to adopt a competence-based approach and pitch the programme at a “train the trainers” (that is, Masters) level. Early students and tutors, keen on a level of learning that would be recognised by employers, also backed this approach. The original intention had been to create a ‘Web 2.0’ learning environment where tutors would help students access appropriate learning resources. They would collaborate further to develop this to meet identified competencies. Thus, although the university sector was not involved, we benchmarked the level according to a traditional model of learning - based on Bloom’s taxonomy.

Influenced by the OER movement, we realised that although we needed to develop an appropriate context for the learning, the Internet was full of resources and we did not have to invent our own. There was also an excellent open source platform for course delivery (Moodle). These and a volunteer workforce allowed us to offer courses for health professionals in developing countries at just $50 per module and waive the fee for those unable to afford it.

We started with a Maternal Mortality module in 2008 and now have 17 course modules that cover the “foundation sciences” of public health and many of the skills required to tackle the health-related Millennium Development Goals. There is an international faculty of tutors from more than 30 countries on the teams. They include public health practitioners and trainees as well as some university academics. Thirty of the volunteers live in Australia. Each is asked to make only a small commitment as all have “day jobs” and limited free time. A common format has evolved for course module development and delivery. Students and tutors provide feedback for course revisions and development.

Responding to students who wanted credentials for their learning, we approached various higher education institutions for validation and collaboration. Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) was receptive. This led to the development of a Master of Public Health (MPH) award, which students can obtain by enrolment with MMU, with teaching and assessment provided by Peoples-uni.

MMU charges a small annual fee for quality assurance and for each student enrolment. To afford this, we have increased the fee for students who want this UK credential. We will also use this income to fund the Peoples-uni infrastructure (IT and minimal administrative support) - a kind of Social Enterprise business model. Students who do not want or can’t afford an MMU award and who do not meet our criteria for bursaries take the same courses but get their awards from Peoples-uni not Manchester Metropolitan University. We are now in the process of replacing MMU with another UK-based university.

Peoples-uni is innovative in many aspects. Although e-learning and the use of Open Educational Resources are well established methods, it has combined them, is using an international volunteer faculty and targeting developing countries. It is run entirely outside the university sector but benchmarked by a highly credible UK university, and is offered at a very low cost with its infrastructure supported by the social enterprise model. It has a wide range of courses within the public health arena, and an active alumni group which plans to perform collaborative research using the skills obtained in the course to improve the health of their populations.

We have had more than 1,000 students. They come from more than 40 countries across the developing world, mostly from Africa. The first students have graduated with the MPH degree. We appear to be generating adequate resources to fund a basic infrastructure. We are developing both our breadth and depth, and hope to scale up to help meet some of the needs to improve the health of populations in developing countries. We are keen to identify partners – organisations or individuals – who share common goals. Please contact the author directly or through the website http://peoples-uni.org.

Professor Dick Heller (rfheller@peoples-uni.org) is coordinator of the Peoples-uni