Starting with transitions: Internationalisation for a post graduate physiotherapy course

Abstract

Introduction Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) is one of two Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in England’s fifth largest city. Previously a Polytechnic, it became a University in 1992 and is now the third largest in the UK, with more than 4,000 staffand 37,000 students, of whom over 4,000 are international. Our postgraduate physiotherapy programme, Master of Science (Applied Physiotherapy), began in 2005 and was renamed the MSc Applying Physiotherapy in 2008, when it was redesigned to meet the learning needs of a culturally diverse group of students. Intended for graduate physiotherapists with little or no experience of working in the United Kingdom (UK), it has proved popular with physiotherapists who qualified outside of Europe. Student numbers in the programme have grown steadily to a peak of over a hundred in 2010-2011.