About Developing People | The Foundation for Professional Development

Developing people

As an institution of higher education developing people is core to our mission, however we acknowledge that cost is a major barrier to quality education. FPD therefore actively strives to reduce the fi nancial burden of participants through scholarship programmes. Scholarships provided in 2018 were to the value of R9,385,016 bringing the total value of scholarships provided since 1998 to over R650,000,000.

FPD has developed an innovative model to ensure education is easily accessible. Courses are taken to where students live and work, thereby eliminating geographical barriers to education. Furthermore, our unique model of combining assessed self-study (using comprehensive study material) and facilitated contact sessions limits time away from work and therefore limits the disruption of service delivery. The FPD on-line learning platform off ers state of the art education support by video tuition.

Departments

Aligned to FPD’s vision of building a better society through education and capacity development, the FPD Business School focuses on developing transformational leaders. The FPD Business School has a wide selection of management and business courses made up of formally registered qualifi cations, international short courses, short learning programmes and distance education. These management courses cater for all levels of students from entry-level managers to highly experienced executive management. Our teaching methodologies are based on cutting edge educational processes and include: facilitated contact sessions, case studies, group discussions, structured and unstructured group work and action research.

The School of Education strives to enhance the professional development of educators across the educational spectrum. From early childhood care and education to postgraduate studies, the FPD School of Education off ers a wide range of educational courses that incorporates technology enhanced learning and leadership. Qualifi cations and courses designed to meet the need to educate in the basic and higher education environment.

The FPD School of Health Sciences has been the leader in training healthcare professionals for more than 20 years, and takes pride in being recognised as the pinnacle product leader and innovator in the healthcare industry. Our research has shown that 54% of all doctors have studied with FPD and continue to do so by earning some of their yearly Continuous Education Units (CEU) points a requirement by the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA).

The overall aim of FPD School of Nursing is to prepare nurses to meet the dynamic health needs of the South African community through the development of clinical knowledge and practical skills of nursing students and practitioners. Through innovation, sound educational principles and evidence based practice, FPD School of Nursing aims to positively impact the health environment of South Africa. The School is committed to professionalism, caring for the needs of people, improving the healthcare quality and patient safety.

The FPD School of Information Technology is an active Microsoft Imagine Academy and a Microsoft Global Training Partner. Our speciality is distance/remote, self-paced eLearning via our Azure hosted Learner Management System (LMS). We off er international vendor certifi cations, software licencing, and educator services in the Information Technology space. We are a mobile Certiport testing centre with the ability to remotely proctor international vendor certifi cations anywhere in the world. FPD School of IT is also accredited with the MICT SETA.

The school will develop specialisation in the fi eld of child forensics, in particular, cases of violence against children. This specialisation will translate into an improved response to cases of violence against children, thereby upholding the rights of children to protection from violence and abuse.

The School of Natural Sciences is a newly established school and will off er short learning programmes in the various disciplines of the natural sciences. These short learning programmes will be endorsed by the South African Council for Natural Scientifi c Professions (SACNASP).

The school of Public Health is a newly established school and aim to produce public health professionals that are able to adapt and localise international public health policies with the aim of promoting the population health while taking into consideration the good cultural beliefs and practices of our diverse African nations and communities.

The SHIPS Department focuses on developing innovate models to transition young people from educational programmes into the workplace through apprenticeship models.

FPD Conferences & Special Events Department is a business unit supported by skilled people operating advanced information technology systems and database platforms.

The Education Innovation Department (EID) is a support department and delivers a comprehensive, coordinated and integrated academic development service to the Foundation for Professional Development (FPD). EID has the vision to create innovative, high quality educational programmes to position FPD as a leading provider of higher education and training.

The FPD Programme Evaluation Department undertakes donor funded and commercial programme evaluations. The Department has since inception conducted evaluations for public and private organizations across Southern Africa. The Department does not follow a “one size fits all” approach to evaluations, but rather offer evaluations that can be customised to its clients’ needs and expectations. The Department has well-established national and international relationships with various universities and organisations and collaborate with its partners to conduct cost effective evaluations. As the Department uses a Rand-based overhead structure, it is able to conduct evaluations at a much lower cost than many international evaluators. The Programme Evaluation Department became commercially viable during 2015.