Supporting Lifelong Learning among Nigerian Community Health Workers through a Targeted Assessment of Training Needs

Sarah Dwyer — Fri, 05 Dec 2014 18:07:08 +0000

Lifelong learning is the ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. It is not confined to the classroom but takes place throughout life and in a range of situations. To develop and maintain the competencies needed to deliver high-quality services, health workers must be lifelong learners. Formal continuing education and training activities can support lifelong learning. Yet to be effective, they must target identified gaps between each worker’s current knowledge and skills and what is actually needed on the job. Training needs assessments provide information to target learning activities toward identified competency gaps and learning needs of specific health workers.

In Nigeria, CapacityPlus collaborated with the Community Health Practitioners Registration Board of Nigeria (CHPRBN) and the Federal Ministry of Health to assess the training needs of community health workers in the South-South region. The assessment focused on globally accepted knowledge, skills, and attitudes for community health practitioners in nine competency domains:

Author's name:

Rebecca Bailey and Joseph Eton

Publication Date:

December 2014

In-Service Training

Supporting Lifelong Learning among Nigerian Community Health Workers through a Targeted Assessment of Training Needs