HCM CITY — Outcome-based education (OBE) and competency-based education (CBE) are two teaching methodologies that should be used to enhance programme quality at medical universities and colleges in Việt Nam, experts have said.

Speaking at a seminar on December 26 on improving the quality of medical education programmes, Nantana Sirisup of the ASEAN Medical Education Alliance said that OBE is based around goals or outcomes to be achieved by the end of each course.

With CBE, students demonstrate that they have learned knowledge and skills as they progress in their studies.

“Developing educational strategies can help create professional and skilled medical graduates,” she said.

The three-day seminar in HCM City was organised by the ASEAN Medical Education Alliance and HCM City University of Medicine and Pharmacy, with 170 domestic and foreign medical professors and lecturers attending.  

Sirisup said the criteria for an outcome or competency framework should be clear, unambiguous and intuitive to the users.

"Medical teachers should identify programme learning outcomes which reflect the vision and mission of the institution and core competencies of your schools,” she said.

Teachers should pay attention to levels of outcomes, including exit outcomes (effective communication), phase outcomes (if appropriate), yearly outcomes (communicating with patients and their relatives, including bad news), course outcome (subject or discipline), and unit outcomes (lesson plan).

“You should identify learning outcomes of your courses based on the exit outcomes of the programme, and sequence the content related to the outcomes,” Sirisup said.  

Outcome-based curriculum (OBC) and competency-based curriculum (CBC) were also discussed, as well as evaluation of the clinical learning environment with the Clinical Learning Environment, Supervision and Nurse Teacher (CLES + T) scale for nursing training. — VNS