Results for Certified Evaluation and Accreditation for Professional Graduate School of Public Health Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University Professional Degree Program in Public Health
(Accreditation Period: April 1, 2024 – March 31, 2029)
The mission of the Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University Professional Degree Program in Public Health (hereafter “School”), is “to improve people’s health and welfare through the activities and mutual interaction of teaching, research, translating research into practice and policy, and professional practice, centralized in the interface of medicine/healthcare and society/environment." In light of this mission, the School has set the goal "to help people, who wish to start a professional or academic research career in the future in the fields of health, medicine, and welfare, to acquire the knowledge, techniques, and attitude necessary to detect, evaluate, analyze, and solve problems related to the health of human society." To fulfill this mission and goal, the School has formulated a medium- and long-term vision and set out five basic policies: "(1) To cultivate the abilities to take action, conduct research and development, and achieve results":"(2) To contribute to social responses to both sudden and calmly unfolding crises";"(3) To promote collaboration across organizational and disciplinary boundaries";"(4) To strengthen partnerships with citizens, communities, and industries"; and "(5) To promote contribution and collaboration in administrative and policy-making processes at the global, national, and regional levels." The School continues to implement these basic policies, taking into account recommendations from the Degree Program Meeting, which consists of relevant internal staff members, as well as the Advisory Board (Collaboration Council for Educational Program) held once a year with external parties participating. The curriculum is designed for students to achieve the degree award policy (diploma policy) by taking a series of basic, applied, and practical subjects in five core areas, culminating in task research. Students can check the program structure with the course tree. In addition to the Master of Public Health (MPH ) Course (the core course), the School offers a various learning options through special courses in line with the times in areas with high social needs, such as the Master of Clinical Research Course , Genetic Counselor Course Clinical Biostatistics  Course Management of Technology and Intellectual Property Course , and Young Leader Program for Healthcare Management These are distinctive educational efforts that meet the needs of society and students and foster much needed professionals. With respect to the faculty, the School has taken the initiative to present the "Best Coursework Award" to recognize high-quality courses. Courses in which relatively young 1 program-specific faculty members join as instructors are also eligible. As courses offered by multiple faculty members and experts in an omnibus format have also received the award, it is commendable that it motivates faculty members to devise effective ways of teaching, including class contents and methods, and contributes to the development of public health education requiring a multifaceted approach. There are several areas of improvement, however, identified in the certified evaluation and accreditation. First, as for the curriculum, syllabuses are not well prepared for some courses, and a Japanese/English bilingual syllabus is not offered for some subjects. Moreover, attendance is not given points in the performance evaluations, but the term "attendance" is used in the grading method. These areas should be addressed. In addition, it is desirable that the required achievements in terms of the four abilities to be acquired upon program completion should be visualized for students and faculty members, and the level of students' academic achievement should be systematically and bidirectionally assessed by both students and faculty members. Regarding faculty organization, several issues have been identified, such as the insufficient number of female full-time faculty members and the low ratio of foreign national faculty members. From the perspective of promoting gender equality and global education, the School is advised to make improvements in these areas. Going forward, the School should continue its self-study activities to further improve the quality of its education and enhance the distinctive features of the program.