This document provides background information and plans for the School of Public Health (SPH) at Mekelle University. The SPH was established in 2003 and has grown to include 7 departments and over 100 academic staff. It offers undergraduate, graduate, and PhD programs in public health. The situational analysis identifies strengths such as available expertise, and weaknesses such as poor communication. Opportunities include expanding services, and threats include limited budgets and the pandemic. Key plans are to increase education quality through curriculum changes and assessments, scale up research and knowledge transfer, empower female staff, enhance staff development, upgrade the school, expand accessible education, and improve staff/student satisfaction.

1. Plan, SPH
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2. Background
• It was initially established in 2003/04 as a Department of Public Health
under College of Health Sciences of Mekelle University
• It started Upgrading Health Officer Training Program (UHOTP) in
Collaboration with TRHB in 2003/2004.
• After 1st batch graduation, the Accelerated Health Officer Training
Program (AHOTP) was launched in August 2005 – FMoH (#5 Yrs.).
• Enrollment of generic BSc in Public Health students started since 2011.
• The Department of Public Health was upgraded to School of Public
Health in July 2015.
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3. Background…
• The SPH is staffed with 104 academic staffs consisting of 7 departments
and one unit under its jurisdiction.
• the departments/Units are:
—Department of Biostatistics
—Department of Environmental Health and Behavioral Sciences
—Department of Epidemiology
—Department of Health Systems
— Department of Health Officer
—Department of Nutrition and Dietetics
—Department of Reproductive Health and
—Health Informatics and Health Care Innovation
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4. Programs
Currently, the school is running:
1) Three UG programs namely:
⁻ BSc in Public Health
⁻ BSc in Environmental Health
⁻ BSc in Health Informatics
⁻ BSc in Dietetics???
2) Eight PG/graduate programs namely:
 General MPH (GMPH)
 MPH in Reproductive Health (MPH/RH)
 MPH in Public Health Nutrition (MPH/PHN)
 MPH in Field Epidemiology
 MSc In Biostatistics and Health Informatics
 Masters of Hospital Administration (MHA)
 MPH in Monitoring and Evaluation (MPH in M&E)
 MSc in Biostatistics
3) One PhD program (PhD in Public Health): launched the PhD program with the Addis Continental Institute
of Public Health in 2012/2013.
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5. SPH, Staff Statistics
Table 1: Staff statistics of SPH by Department, Sex, Qualification, and Academic Rank, 2020
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Male Female BSc MSc/MPHPhD GA/TA
Ass't
Lect. Lect.
Ass't
Prof.
Assoc.
Prof.
1Biostatistics 9(75.0) 3(25.0) 2(16.7) 9(75.0) 1(8.3) 0(0.0) 2(16.7) 3(25.0) 5(42.7) 2(16.7) 12
2Epidemiology 10(71.4) 4(28.6) 2(14.3) 10(71.4) 2(14.3) 0(0.0) 2(14.3) 7(50.0) 3(21.4) 2(14.3) 14
3Env.andBeh.Sciences 12(70.6) 5(29.4) 1(5.9) 13(76.5) 3(17.6) 1(5.9) 0(0.0) 7(41.2) 8(47.1) 1(5.9) 17
4HealthInformatics 10(100.0)0(0.0) 3(30.0) 7(70.0) 0(0.0) 1(10.0) 2(20.0) 5(50.0) 2(20.0) 0(0.0) 10
5HealthSystems 12(63.2) 7(36.8) 3(15.8) 14(73.7) 2(10.5) 0(0.0) 1(5.3) 11(57.9)6(31.6) 1(5.3) 19
6NutritionandDietetics 5(42.7) 7(58.3) 2(16.7) 8(57.1) 2(16.7) 1(8.3) 1(8.3) 4(33.3) 5(42.7) 1(8.3) 12
7ReproductiveHealth 13(65.0) 7(35.0) 4(20.0) 12(60.0) 4(20.0) 0(0.0) 4(20.0) 11(55.0)2(10.0) 3(15.0) 20
71(68.3) 33(31.7)17(16.3)73(70.2) 14(13.5)3(2.9) 12(11.5)48(46.2)31(29.8)10(9.6) 104Total
Sex Qualification AcademicRank
TotalS.N Department

6. Major Services
• Teaching
• Research
• Community services
• Advisor-ship
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7. Other Services
• Editorial Services (i.e. EAJHS)
• KA-HDSS co-ordination and advisory
• Consultation services
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8. Core values
• Quality
• Customer oriented service
• Creativity
• Trustworthiness
• Sustainability
• Good governance
• Commitment
• Equity
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9. Situational Analysis (SWOT Analysis)
1) Strengths:
– Availability of adequate manpower of varied expertise.
– Sense of ownership
– Generating income
– Increasing accessibility of education by opening need
based programs
– Good experience in teaching, research and community
services
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10. Situational Analysis (SWOT Analysis)
2) Weaknesses:
– Poor communication
– Lack of follow-up and support
– No organized BSc based plan and performance report
– Poor experience sharing among staffs
– Low focus to advisor-ship
– Low motivation of staffs
– Limited staff offices and classrooms
– No/limited skill labs
– Low capacity building in leadership
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11. Situational Analysis (SWOT Analysis)
3) Opportunities:
– Peace and security in the region
– Demand driven services
– Good collaboration with THRI, TRHB, TSA and others
– Expanding services in-collaboration to sister universities
4) Threats:
– Limited external budget for research and community services
– COVID -19 Pandemic
– The country’s political situation
– Electric power fluctuation
– Internet interruption
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12. Key gaps
• Diminished quality of education
• Low KTT experiences
• Issues related to good governance
• Transparency and accountability
• Accessibility and sustainability
• Advisor-ship
• Limited inputs for teaching-learning (i.e. class rooms, laptops,
skill labs and staff offices)
• Staff and student satisfaction
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13. Plan, SPH
1) Teaching-learning
• Increasing quality of education
– Periodic evaluation and revising curriculum
– Integrating theoretical with practical aspects
– Peer teaching
– Entrance exams
– External examination
– Program auditing and feedback (i.e. supervision)
– Conducting formative and summative assessments
– Performance evaluation
– Face to face course instruction. Otherwise, video lecturing
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14. Plan, SPH
2) Research, Community services and Publication
– Research findings are expected to be translated in to policy
– Encouraging staffs and students to conduct operational type of research
– Knowledge and Technology Transfer (KTT)
– Tight control in advisor-ship
– Build capacity in research (i.e. via journal clubs)
– Encourage staffs to publish their research findings
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15. Plan, SPH
3) Empowering female academic staffs
– There is imbalance in male to female academic staffs in the school despite
the plan to empower women staffs.
– Only 31.7% of the staffs are females
– Increasing the female academicians to 50%
4) Staff development plan
– The PhD to MSc ratio is planned to be 3:7 (30% PhD and 70% MSc)
– Only 13.5% of the academic staffs in the School are PhD holders
– Therefore, efforts will be made to increase the number of PhD holders
– Scaling up joint collaborations (i.e. local or international)
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16. Plan, SPH
5) Upgrading the School
– Our School is eligible to be promoted to a College
– Thus, efforts will be made to upgrade the school to the next higher level
– Scaling up the services
– Making autonomous to cascade its activities and tasks
– its contribution to the University will be increased
6) Accessibility of Education (Demand driven)
– Our School has been started remote services in collaboration with RU
– However, There is high level of demand from other parts of the region.
– Hence, all efforts will be made to be accessible education for all
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17. Plan, SPH
7) Staff and student (customer) satisfaction
– No evidence on customer satisfaction
– Our service has to be customer oriented
– Affects quality of education
– The School will clearly know its income generated
– Thus, It will be allocated the budget to teaching-learning
– Issues related to staff office and class rooms
– Balancing staff work overload
– Incentives and recognition for best performers
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Together we will make the School great!!!
Thank you!!!