Faculty development

Abstract

Faculty development represents an investment in human resource development. The return to the individual faculty member comes in the form of improved vitality and force that can help sustain them in their academic career. Faculty development and evaluation can be defined as strategies to improve teaching performance of faculty. Some authors defined faculty development activities using three broad categories: technical assistance, high faculty development, and assessment. Teaching skills have received considerable support in the literature as a needed focus of faculty development. Some authors rated effective teaching as the most important qualification. Currently teaching is not taken as a criterion of academic performance, while research is the dominant consideration. Other authors have also identified the problem of poor recognition of teaching within the reward system of medical education. Among the various strategies for faculty development fellowships, short programmes like workshops and seminars, faculty evaluation system and faculty development centres are considered to be important. Faculty development is important for the improvement of medical education as a whole. There should be organized institutional support in this regard.