Effect of Overseas Undergraduate Medical Scholarship (OUMS) on Human Resource capacity Building in Health sector of Kano State

Abstract

The study examined the effect of Overseas undergraduate medical scholarship scheme on human  resource capacity building particularly in health sector of Kano state. Crisis within the health  sector especially those related to manpower challenges was the main reason that prompt the  idea of overseas scholarship scheme with a view to augmenting the already existing local  scholarship in medical and Para-medical disciplines offered by the state government. The study  adopted a mixed method research (MMR) design that incorporates the collection, analysis,  interpretation and reporting of qualitative and quantitative data in order to explore diverse  perspectives and uncover the relationship that exist between the variables under study. The study  has a population of 1,600, Krejcie and Morgan table for determining sample size was used to  draw a sample of 310. Regression was used to test the hypothesis. It has been discovered that  Overseas Undergraduate Medical Scholarship (OUMS) has significant effect on human resource  capacity building (HRCB) in health sector of Kano state. Specifically, the finding shows that  OUMS has played a strategic role in increasing the knowledge, skills, abilities, and experiences  of the beneficiaries and this had significantly helped in addressing the gap in the availability of  health care personnel working in various hospitals in Kano state. Statistically, the result shows  that with P value = 0.000 and the value of alpha (α ≤ 0.05), overseas undergraduate medical  scholarship (OUMS) has 0.533 (53.3%) effect on HRCB in health sector of Kano state. It was  recommended that the implementers of the programme should put more emphasis on the  importance of promoting multidisciplinary research and studies in various disciplines and  specializations in medical parlance. These include Hospital based Clinical specializations,  Laboratory clinical sciences specializations, as well as Community based clinical  specializations. These specializations are more closely related to existing health care problems  in the state such as maternal health, child health.