(TVU) – On the afternoon of September 10, the School of Medicine and Pharmacy held a Workshop on Analysis of Professional Competencies in Pharmacology and Medical Testing at the undergraduate level by the DACUM method attracting more than 100 scientists, managers, businesses, professionals, and alumni.
In response to the requirements of the training quality, Tra Vinh University chose DACUM to improve and develop the training program, and take the AUN-QA standard as a basis for the checking and evaluating process. The participation of businesses and skilled units in the process is a mandatory requirement that is decisive to the compatibility between TVU’s training program and the needs of society.
According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Quang Minh, former Vice President of Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, and Chief Assessor of AUN-QA, the selection of DACUM is to improve and enhance the training program. In particular, the training quality and accreditation activities are considered as means and tools to examine and advance the trait education, to improve quality and competitiveness.
Experts also expressed that professional capacity, personal capacity, and ethical competence are necessary factors to help students absorb and complete the program with high results.
The delegates conducted a survey and commented on the professional capacity of the two branches of Pharmacy and Medical Laboratory. At the same time, businesses and employers describe the work that employees need to perform, the amount of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and competencies for each job position; analyze and evaluate the labor situation of these two industries. Through the workshop, the portrait of a Pharmacist and Bachelor of Medical Laboratory, along with the requirements for graduates were clearly “outlined”.
Assessing the overview of the Pharmacy training program, Mr. Le Van Tam, Deputy Director of TV. Pharm Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company (Tra Vinh) shared: “The training program is full of theory, the students master the basics. However, it is necessary to foster more practical skills at enterprises to help students gain knowledge and skills.”
The delegates also contribute to the training program in the direction of increasing the practice time at enterprises to help students become more confident. Also, the training program should be innovated in the following years. The improvement partly contributes to the criteria for building a “portrait” of a Bachelor in Medical Laboratory through professional competencies, and a set of criteria for assessing core professional competencies for students.
DACUM (Develop A CurriculUM) is a method of analyzing vocational competencies to design a training program. The DACUM method was proposed in July 1968 in the UK, Columbia, Canada, and has been popularized from the 1990s in Canada and the United States to the present, as a new approach to building and developing training programs based on job description and analysis.
By Thy Truong
