The seminars, opened by the Deputy Consul-General in Mumbai, marked the beginning of project Greenspace, which addressed recommendations around education and health as set out in the India Economic Strategy and explored the potential of online education to meet critical skills gaps in hospital management.
According to University of New England Director of Place-based Education and project leader Professor Debra Dunstan, online education is in its infancy in India but holds great potential to open up training opportunities.
“Indian courses in Hospital and Health Service Management are not easy to access due to the traditional face-to-face delivery model,” Professor Dunstan said.
“Through the seminars attended by hospital executives and managers, we gathered information about challenging management issues and explored wider stakeholder interest in online learning supported by in-country administration and tutoring, and work-integrated learning.”
Seminar participants were later surveyed on a range of topics including how training courses in hospital and health service management were perceived, the quality and relevancy of UNE’s online learning materials, and the ease and accessibility of learning materials in India.
“As a project team, we were very pleased with the outcome of the seminars and follow-up fieldwork. We have gathered rich contextualised content for our online courses in Health Management, gained an understanding of the education needs in India, and have open doors to further discussions about potential in-country collaborations.
“It’s especially exciting that our Indian project partner, and the majority of workshop participants, wish to explore a collaborative arrangement for the delivery of an online course in Health Management in India.”
Other key learnings revealed that more Indian-focused content is needed in overseas courses and that stakeholders would value opportunity to input into educational material.
“It was encouraging to note that perceptions of the acceptability, applicability and practicality of online learning increased with exposure to UNE’s interactive digital materials,” Professor Dunstan said. “Indian industry stakeholders also saw high value in a postgraduate certificate in Health Management, studied part-time over one year, with concurrent work-integrated learning.”
Going forward the team believes it is vital to support economic opportunities for Australian universities in India, and international education opportunities for Indian students in a post-COVID-19 world.
“I believe a review of Australian and Indian transnational education polices and requirements would contribute to future collaboration and that particular attention needs to be given to a framework for Australian providers delivering or planning to deliver online courses offshore. That said, right now UNE is actively pursuing the opportunities that have emerged.”
Greenspace was led by the University of New England in collaboration with Indian social enterprise, Beyond Borders Learning Programs, and was funded by the Australia-India Council (AIC) under the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
