Begining this October, Indian students interested in Public Health will have an opportunity to join a prestigious international post-graduate programme at a low cost.
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health of the U.S. will be offering its Master of Public Health (MPH) degree programme in collaboration with the Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR), Jaipur.
The course will involve studying both in India as well as the US, as students will get a chance to travel to Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., for the winter semester at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in January 2014.
The first batch of 60 students will start their course, being offered to students from India as well as those from other low and middle-income countries, at the IIHMR campus here in October this year.
“There has been an overwhelming response and about 100 applications have already been received from India as well as from the South Asian countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bangladesh,” said S.D. Gupta, Director, IIHMR Jaipur.
The MPH curriculum would offer a blend of public health and management courses. It would use the course structure of Johns Hopkins adapted to the context of India and other developing countries.
The courses will be taught by distinguished faculty from the Johns Hopkins University and the IIHMR.
“The age of applicants varies between 24 and 50 years, indicating that the course would be useful for professionals of all age groups working in the field of public health management in public and private sectors,” said Dr. Gupta.
“The course is approved by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), Government of India under foreign collaboration. The degree will be provided by the Johns Hopkins University,” he said.
The programme's curriculum aims at developing the competencies of students in core areas of public health and management such as biostatistics, epidemiology, environmental health science, public health biology, health management and functional management, social and behavioural sciences, public policy and ethics.
It will also develop multi-disciplinary skills among professionals.
Candidates seeking admission to the MPH course require a bachelor’s degree and a minimum of two years of full-time health-related work experience (beyond the bachelor’s or master’s degree), unless they have a doctoral degree.
Dr. Gupta pointed out that the cost of MPH in the U.S. was $ 57,000, while in India it was being offered at a much lower cost of $ 22,000.
