Limpopo Leader - Spring 2005 - University of Limpopo

lecture room, the great advantage
of this method is that it is
accessible to so many who would
otherwise be denied the
opportunity of postgraduate study.
This broadened reach is of utmost
importance in Africa.’
The high level of students from
other countries can be attributed
to initial funding from the
pharmaceutical giant Bristol-
Myers Squibb, who provided
bursaries across the sub-Saharan
region for the first five years of
the NSPH’s life.
‘But even when the funding
came to an end,’ explains
Mokwena, ‘the foreign students
kept on coming. We had generated
a reputation, and our only
marketing has been word-ofmouth.
It’s obvious there is a
need for what we offer.’
Mokwena defined public
health as ‘a discipline that deals
with the health of groups and
populations (rather than
individuals) and that rests on a
foundation of five core elements.
These are social/behavioural
issues, health systems management,
epidemiology, bio-statistics which
puts the numbers into epidemiology,
environmental/occupational
health. Masters students major in
one of these specialities.
NSPH students are drawn from
the ranks of existing nurses,
doctors, pharmacists, dentists,
health inspectors, social workers,
managers from health departments
or any other sphere where
a health focus is required.
‘Our students have included
Dr Kebogile Mokwena, director of Medunsa’s
National School of Public Health, trained as a
physiotherapist at Medunsa, gaining both her first
and Master’s degrees at that university. She then
spent two years in America where she obtained her
doctorate in Public Health from the University of
South Carolina. She also completed a Higher
Education Diploma from Unisa. Now she’s passing
on her knowledge to hundreds of postgraduate
students from South Africa and other Southern
African countries.
the Swaziland Minister of Health,
the Health MEC in Gauteng and
other top government people,
hospital managers and World
Health Organisation personnel,’
says Mokwena. She adds with
obvious pride that Medunsa’s
NSPH is the first public health
school in South Africa to produce
a doctoral graduate.
So successful has the NSPH
been that the public health courses
on the Turfloop campus of the
newly-merged University of
Limpopo have been absorbed into
the NSPH. It’s certainly one of the
ways that the merger is helping to
maintain the quality of tuition on
both campuses.
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