Physiotherapy Education in Norway and South Africa: A Joint Online Learning Project in Rehabilitation
Welcome to the project website for this collaboration between physiotherapy departments at Oslo Metropolitan University (Norway), and the University of the Western Cape (South Africa). The project has received two years of funding from UTFORSK in Norway, which will be used to develop a resource for students and staff who would like like to help expose students to alternative points of view with respect to understanding how social and contextual factors influence our understanding of health and rehabilitation. This project is a continuation of a collaboration that began in 2016 and which is planned to extend until the end of 2020.
The project consists of three main components:
- A collection of student assignments from the two collaborating universities, looking at the health system from the point of view of a patient, as well as to try and understand how social and cultural norms influence how we think about physiotherapy rehabilitation and practice. Students from each university will review the work of their international peers, providing feedback in the form of guidance and questions. This work is private to registered project participants but you can see the instructions to students.
- A student and staff exchange component that will see two lecturers and four second-year physiotherapy students travel between Oslo (Norway) and Cape Town (South Africa) in order to experience first-hand the health system from another perspective. These exchange participants will document their visit using photo, video and personal reflections to share their experiences of other health systems with their peers at home.
- The development of an online learning environment for physiotherapy programmes looking for their students to better understand the concept of internationalisation and physiotherapy practice in different social and cultural contexts.
