Identifying Needs and Preparing for Curriculum Changes in Indian Dental Education

Abstract

The aims of dental professional courses are to prepare dental healthcare providers to manage common dental diseases, perform surgeries, and offer prevention. They should also be equipped to understand the needs of the society they are serving and willing to amend their skills. As they are expected to be a part of a team providing health care, they should have the requisite leadership and managerial skills for leading the team to serve its objectives in the best possible way. Thus, with changing times, there is a need to bring reforms in dental curricula. Traditional classroom teaching is now shifting to a competency-based education system across the globe. The Dental Council of India (DCI), as a dental health regulator in the country, implements reforms periodically in an attempt to further strengthen the training process and bring quality improvement in dental education. A process of redesigning the curriculum started a couple of years ago. The technical team supporting this work brainstormed the need for such reforms and studied the existing pattern of undergraduate curricula in other developed countries. It was found that many countries are following outcome-based teaching-learning methods. There are several institutions and professional associations proposing recommendations on curricular reforms, and India also suggests following the same. The new education policy (NEP) of the Government of India (GoI) is also in sync with the changes proposed to the DCI. Though such changes are challenging and require time to strategize and implement, it is essential to have reforms in curriculum, especially related to methods of teaching-learning and assessment, and for this, the dental faculty needs to be trained.