Dr Basiro Davey MBE

National Teaching Fellow 2012 Dr Basiro Davey joined The Open University (OU) in 1976 after completing a Doctorate in Tumour Immunology. During a career spanning more than 35 years, she pioneered the development of an extensive distance-learning curriculum in Health Sciences, mentored a generation of academic staff in the discipline, chaired production teams and exam boards and contributed to hundreds of original multimedia learning resources on global public health, immunology, epidemiology, communicable diseases and cancers. Under her leadership, Health Sciences became an established multidisciplinary field of teaching and scholarship at the OU, widening access to a BSc (Honours) in Health Sciences and supporting careers and personal development in health-related fields for thousands of adult students. In 2009 Basiro became Deputy Director (Ethiopia) of the OUs Health Education and Training (HEAT) programme. Her expertise in global health and distance learning enabled her to develop and lead intensive curriculum design and writing workshops in Ethiopia with over 50 local health experts and 12 OU colleagues. Together they produced 13 modules commissioned by the Ethiopian Ministry of Health in key areas of health promotion and disease prevention in rural African communities, all of which are open educational resources (OERs). These OERs are free to study online or download, adapt and use anywhere in the world. In Ethiopia they form the core of a blended learning programme to upgrade the countrys 33,000 rural Health Extension Workers (HEWs) to a consistent quality standard nationwide. Areas include maternal and child health, environmental health, family planning, sexual health, nutrition, immunisation, communicable and non-communicable diseases and mental health. Basiro also led tutor training and assessment workshops in Ethiopia, and more recently in Nigeria, to develop capacity in distance learning pedagogy for academics from six Nigerian Universities. She is currently engaged in developing a programme on non-communicable disease prevention in India.