This move will include the establishment of a Center of Excellence for Health Education and Training.
County governments from the east African country’s western region will receive nearly £1 billion in UK export funding to build “six new health campuses” to train health staff in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and nursing programmes, under license from a British university, the institution said in a press statement. .
It will involve seven local universities spread across the region, with one of them, Kisi University hosting the CoE, having its spokespersons in local institutions at Maseno, Masinde Muliro, Egerton, Bomet and Kibabii universities.
As part of the deal, Manchester will support health curriculum development through program licensing, staff development and technical advice on designing “learning spaces”, said Manchester’s associate dean for internationalization Keith Brennan.
“In the longer term, we will support the development of research capacity as we are already doing with another Kenyan institution, the Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral & Research Hospital,” he said.
“The Ministry of Education (Kenya) is the sponsor of the project and they are currently working with the Ministry of Finance to raise funds from development partners to support the project. The estimated cost of the entire project is currently approaching £1 billion,” said the Dean The PIE news.
“There will be a significant legacy”
“One of the development partners that will be approached will be UK Export Finance, but I’m sure others will be approached as well.”
The involvement of county governments under the auspices of the Lake Region economic bloc is because health is a devolved function in Kenya.
“While the University of Manchester will be supporting the development of the healthcare curriculum… other members of the Kenya UK Healthcare Alliance will be supporting clinical uptake,” Brennan explained.
The alliance facilitates partnerships between UK health institutions, including hospitals, research institutions and six Kenyan universities, the dean added.
The proper establishment of hospitals and associated departments of health education, medical schools under the Council of Europe will begin within the next 12 months, subject to the availability of funds.
“It will be a long-term project. The development of the curriculum will take at least five years, but the University of Manchester expects to be a much longer-term partner and that there will be a significant legacy,” Brennan explained further.
