Durban, South Africa 2010

Summary report

The sixth World Conference on Optometric Education (WCOE): Meeting Societies Needs; Challenges and Trends in Optometric Education was held in Durban, South Africa from September 23-25, 2010. This conference was planned with the World Congress on Refractive Error with an overlapping day for both conferences.

Presentations were placed in three different categories:

• · Developing Appropriate Human Resources
• · Strategies in providing quality education
• · Trends and developments in optometric education

The three day event included twenty lecture presentations, six workshops, twenty six poster oral presentations with a session of round table discussions and seven regional educational reports.

The first day was opened by Gordon Roads Girls Choir singing the national anthem and other songs. The official welcoming presentation was given by Professor George Woo, President of the World Council of Optometry. He presented the program content and announced post-homously the International Optometrist of the Year award to Dr.Tom Little, who was killed in August 2010 on a health mission that included eye care in the province of Nuristan, Afghanistan. This was followed by a talk by Dr.Bina Patel, Chair of the WCOE program steering committee, who challenged educators with some thoughts about future generation of learners.

During the first day, lectures were given under the themes of

• · Linking current and planned national and regional optometric education models to national and regional health services delivery

• · Developing optometric faculty and student research experience

Poster presentations with short oral summaries were presented by the author were made under the theme of

• Developing Appropriate Human Resources

In addition, the first day program was designed to allow the WCOE delegates to attend and participate in various sessions offered at the same time by the World Congress on Refractive Error (WCRE) that was taking place concurrently with the WCOE meeting.

Some of the highlights included presentations on human resource development needs especially in countries within Africa including the importance of understanding public health needs and sharing educational resources. In addition methods of retaining faculty including scholarly activity and mentoring were presented. Factors limiting the growth of optometric programs, to higher exit levels were discussed

That evening there was a joint WCOE and WCRE gala dinner that included presentations, entertainment and music.

The second day program included lectures and several workshops under the themes of…

• · Strategies in providing quality education and curricular development
• · Models of improving the effectiveness of optometric educators in clinical settings

Some of the highlights included examples of institutions or co-operations sharing educational expertise with other institutions (either globally or with individual institutions) and how this can be useful in curricular development, faculty expertise and providing effective clinical experience.

The workshops included sharing techniques on improving the effectiveness of optometric educators in didactic and clinical settings such as cultural competency, critical thinking, using clickers to measure student learning and ethics, importance of including neuro-development in the curriculum.

The oral poster presentations were followed by round table discussion.

Later in the afternoon, delegates had an opportunity to visit the Optometry department at KwaZulu- Natal University hosted by Professor Percy Khathushelo and his faculty and staff, or attend workshops provided by Essilor or network with other educators.

The last day of the program included lecture presentations…

• · Evaluating quality and effectiveness of optometry programmes
• · Postgraduate degree programmes - development and challenges

Poster presentations with short oral summaries were presented by the author were made under the theme of

• · Quality assurance of optometric programmes

Regional reports: representatives from each of the WCO regions presented reports on recent and future activities on optometric education, development and challenges within each region.

The highlights of this day included presentations on innovative methods of assessing student competencies and life long learning and reflections of issues with continuing education which was complemented by posters

The closing presentations were given by Professor Brien Holden, CEO, Brien Holden Vision Institute who spoke about the WCRE conference and importance of the profession to be involved in reducing uncorrected refractive errors globally.

Ms.Tone Garaas-Maurdalen, WCO President-Elect, summarised the conference highlights and encouraged educators to move forward to continue to strive for harmonization in the optometric progression and work with organizations to reach the Vision 2020 goal.

Recognition was given to the International Eyecare for Education and Education for jointly organizing the WCOE and WCRE conferences; World Council of Optometry; The College of Optometrists from the UK and WCOE 6 steering committee members and sponsors.

Two hundred and sixty nine speakers and delegates representing forty four countries attended the conference.

Post conference

Surveys that were completed by delegates and presenters will be used for planning for the future WCOE conference in 2014.

Those interested in publishing their lecture or poster presentations in the Journal of Optometric Education information can be found on http://www.opted.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3486