The World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for the Development of Health Professionals’ Education, based at AGU’s College of Medicine and Health Sciences, has concluded a virtual workshop titled “Modern Assessment Methods in Health-Professions Education”.

The programme was organised in cooperation with the WHO Country Office and led by Prof. Muhamed Saiful Bahri, Professor of Medical Education at University of Putra Malaysia and a noted authority on curriculum development and contemporary assessment strategies.

The workshop was designed to strengthen the capacity of faculty members across the Middle East and North Africa to design, implement and evaluate evidence-based assessment tools that support student learning and competence attainment. It underlined the pivotal role of assessment in steering the educational process and ensuring the quality of medical education, particularly amid rapid advances in teaching strategies and the growing demand for transparency and academic accountability.

Participants were introduced to assessment practices recommended by global frameworks such as the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) and Best Evidence Medical Education (BEME). Key themes included the principles underpinning modern assessment in the health professions, attributes of effective evaluation – validity, reliability, fairness and educational impact, integration of assessment into competency-based curricula, and the faculty role in securing robust and consistent application of assessment standards.

Prof. Saiful Bahri noted that the workshop forms part of a series of initiatives spearheaded by the Centre to advance health-professions education through continual innovation, regional and international collaboration, and the empowerment of academic staff.

Prof. Abdelhalim Deifalla, Dean of the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, emphasised that the programme aligns with the College’s ongoing efforts to enhance the quality of medical education and develop the skills of health-care professionals. 

He underscored the College’s commitment to exchanging expertise with leading academic institutions and research centres worldwide to promote evidence-based education and improve the outcomes of health-care training programmes in the Gulf and Arab regions.

Targeting academics, health-care practitioners and medical-education specialists, the workshop provided an interactive platform to discuss global trends in academic evaluation, including the use of digital technologies, objective measurement tools and the adoption of internationally recognised best-practice standards.

Prof. Saiful Bahri currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Medical Education, President of the Malaysian Association of Medical and Health Sciences Education, Special Adviser to the Executive Director of the ASEAN University Network (AUN), and AUN Regional Director for East Asia.