The Mobile
Learning System is a user-friendly and portable, cost-effective training
solution, adapted to rural and hard-to-reach areas relevant for both pre-and in
service midwives. Dr. Mathias Gakwerere is the national programme officer for
Maternal Health and Midwifery at UNFPA Rwanda. He helped bring the project to
his home country after seeing how colleagues in neighboring countries had
developed the innovative teaching tool.
“Midwives in
Rwanda are facing challenges in their clinical training,” said Dr. Gakwerere.
"Many students in midwifery schools don't get a chance to access enough
hands-on skills to master the experience they need before graduation,”
With a
shortage of staff in rural areas, there are few training opportunities. Health
centers don't have the financial means to support conference training or
transport for staff to attend workshops in other areas.”
“Limited budgets make it impractical to bring
midwives together for training conferences in the capital of Kigali or other
cities with convenient training facilities,” Dr. Gakwerere said. “Through the
mobile learning system, all providers are supported to enhance their
skills,”
With this skills gap identified, the UNFPA
Rwanda team had to find a solution to address the challenges faced by
facilities in rural areas and improve the quality of care with continuous
learning, as well as reinforcement of concepts or skills previously gained
through past midwifery training.
Capacity-building to support a system of ongoing
professional development.
Through the Mobile Learning System, modules
deepen practical skills about the leading causes of maternal mortality in
Rwanda like maternal bleeding in childbirth. “It is discussed in terms of case
studies,” Dr. Gakwerere said. “It might be that a patient comes in with these
symptoms and presents an interactive video that is designed for group learning.”
The central
piece of equipment is a projector about the size of a smartphone. It is
programmed with globally-recognized curriculum and modules that facilitate
discussions and evaluations to help measure the knowledge being shared.
Designing the material around the staff meeting
helped focus the lessons to make them easy to use and adapt. Nurses and
midwives conduct meetings to discuss a case that they received overnight.
“The module addresses the case they have just
seen and refreshes everyone on how they could have done it better or what
should be done to manage the case in their hands.”
The integration of this platform in the staff
meetings increased inter-generational learning. The group dynamic means
professionals are exchanging experiences or asking questions to each other.
Registered midwife Clementine Uwumukiza is one
of the trainees and a focal person at Murunda Hospital that uses the
platform.
“Before the mobile learning system, we had
limited opportunities to train and refresh ourselves. We had to wait for the
Ministry of Health training in a distant health facility which could take
longer and increase workload for health providers who have to remain on duty.
This system facilitates our training and learning at no cost; we have enhanced
our skills and knowledge and we are more ready to save the lives of mothers and
newborns.”
The UNFPA in
collaboration with the Ministry of Health is preparing to scale up the use of
the Mobile Learning System across health facilities located in the remaining
administrative districts and partners and resources are being mobilized to
support it. This will provide synergistic impact with the gamified phone-based
remote training solution for nurses and midwives which is at its final stages
of development.
“Training midwives is critical and should use a
blended learning approach coupling e-learning with practical hands-on
mentorship programs. We need to take these systems to scale with
partners that can accelerate this kind of innovation,” said Dr. Gakwerere.
Dr. Gakwerere knows it will take time for all
partners and donors to understand the benefit of new things but he is inspired
by the potential of the learning tool.
“The users of the platform may be health
professionals,” he says, “but the real end-user is the women who will receive
better care. Rwandan women will have better-trained midwives who are able to
save their lives and the lives of their babies.”
Source: unfpa.org
