As a way of implementing one of its key roles in Leveraging Local Capacity to Strengthen Health Service Delivery in Malawi in the Human Resource for Health (HRH) project, a USAID-funded project at Malawi College of Health Sciences (MCHS), ASRT conducted soft skills training, also known as Essential Business Skills, from 20th September 2021 to 29th October 2021, to faculty members and students from MCHS. Essential Business Skills is an accredited course offered by ABMA Education, a UK based firm which offers courses that enhance workplace skill sets for continuous professional as well as personal development. The trainings were conducted to realize one of HRH objective; to improved teaching and learning, and enhanced staff capacity at MCHS.
The participants were lecturers from different faculties including Nursing and Midwifery, Information Technology, radiology and Medical Sciences, and students pursuing different courses including certificates in Pharmacy, Clinical Medicine and Nursing and Midwifery Technicians. The participants went through 16 interactive sessions of different skills topics: time management skills, leadership skills, critical thinking, coping with organizational change, emotional intelligence, coaching and mentoring, presentation skills, teamwork, networking, problem solving, conflict resolution, motivation-self and others, report writing and decision making.
301 participants from MCHS were trained, 7 staff members 294 students. Out of the students, 61 students were scholarship beneficiaries of the project. There was positive feedback and participants talked of clear mindset change. Participants also talked about how this course has made so much an indelible mark to inform their professional and personal lives.
Participant 1
“During the soft skills training I have had a very beautiful time to reflect on what I have been, what I am and what I have to do to be what I want to be next. I have enjoyed the presentations from day one to the end……. I have acquired some new essential skills. I have also recognized some skills which I have but did not know I had. It’s been the most wonderful time.”
Participant 2
“I am encouraging and recommending that this course must also go further to other people including those doing business, who own companies, organizations and industries, that their employees also must learn these skills because they are very essential. These are competencies that most employers look for whenever they are recruiting.”
Well done to all participants!
