Education policy and quality
Vision on educational quality at ITM
ITM has a longstanding tradition of measuring, discussing and enhancing the quality of its courses and programmes, driven by its educational vision and characterised by a strong educational quality culture.
The educational vision expresses the fundamental principles that ITM consistently applies across its educational activities:
Global open campus
ITM is an inclusive global open campus that offers science-driven and societally relevant postgraduate training, in the field of tropical medicine and international public health.
Participatory learning
Studying at ITM means benefitting from an international and diverse setting where students, alumni and staff co-develop participatory learning. ITM's student population is highly diverse, qualified, eager to contribute to societal development, and coached towards scientific discovery and the application of acquired competencies in their respective contexts.
Student-centred
ITM is a higher education institution that fosters lifelong learning and employs teaching and learning methods that are adapted to the needs and expectations of its students, at any point in their career: flexible and blended learning, mobility and tailored student support are key characteristics of ITM's education.
Point of reference in science and practice
With its alumni, ITM aims to play a prominent role in tropical medicine and international public health.
The educational vision finds its embodiment in an educational quality culture characterised by:
(1)
Learning outcomes that reflect ITM’s commitment to delivering high-quality education aligned with societal needs and grounded in scientific relevance.
(2)
A strong tradition of consultation and diverse approaches to assessing educational quality that actively engage all pertinent stakeholders.
(3)
A continuous dedication of staff on all organisational levels, all working collectively to pursue educational excellence and promptly responding to educational quality issues.
(1) Learning outcomes aligned with societal needs and grounded in scientific relevance
As a statutory registered Flemish higher education institution, ITM offers training at PhD, Master, Postgraduate Certificate and specialised short course levels in the fields of tropical medicine and international public health. At all levels, the formulated learning outcomes reflect ITM’s commitment to delivering high-quality education in these fields.
According to the Flemish Act on the qualifications structure of April 30th 2009, the master programmes have drafted discipline-specific learning outcomes (DSLO) as well as programme specific learning outcomes (PLO). The DLSO validated by NVAO for the Master of Science in Public Health, the Master of Science in Global One Health: Diseases at the Human-Animal Interface (previously the Master of Science in Tropical Animal Health) and the Master of Science in Tropical Medicine can be consulted here:
The learning outcomes specific to the programmes (master's, postgraduate, and continuing education) and short courses offered by ITM are communicated on their respective pages on ITM’s website.
(2) A strong tradition of consultation and diverse approaches to assess educational quality
Assessing educational quality at ITM is realised in multiple ways, involving all relevant stakeholders:
Student surveys
ITM conducts annual monitoring of course components and programmes using anonymous student surveys with a combination of closed- and open-ended questions. These surveys are sent out at the beginning and end of each course or programme and one and four years after graduation. The survey at the start of the studies helps to assess student expectations, needs, and motivation to study at ITM. The course evaluation at the end measures satisfaction with course content and teaching methods. The post-graduation surveys provide insights into the impact of ITM studies on the graduates' careers and their connection to the alumni network. While these evaluations primarily serve internal purposes, ITM includes relevant education indicators in its annual administrative report.
Furthermore, each academic year, a summary of course evaluation results is presented on this page to demonstrate quality assurance outcomes. This summary focuses on closed-ended questions common to all courses (for example, questions specific to distance learning are excluded as not all ITM courses include a distance learning component). Open-ended responses are not included for privacy considerations and because they are too extensive to display. Programme-level evaluation results are available on the respective master programme pages.
For the academic year 2024-2025, course evaluation surveys were sent out for 47 courses and course components to all participants. Hence, programme students repeatedly filled out the course evaluation survey for every course they followed. Overall, 974 surveys were sent and 647 were filled out, resulting in an overall response rate of 66%.
The course evaluation survey results indicate that students are generally satisfied with the courses they completed. They particularly appreciate the availability of the teaching staff and the relevance of what they have learnt to their professional activities. At the same time, the results reinforce ongoing efforts to closely monitor and manage the overall workload, as 10% of students rated this workload as quite high. Finally, we are committed to ensuring that future students have a clearer understanding of what to expect at the start of their courses.
Read course evaluation survey results 2024-2025
Dialogue with stakeholders
To involve students in education policy and provide a platform to express their concerns and satisfaction regarding educational matters, ITM conducts biannual participation meetings with ITM management and elected student and alumni representatives. Additionally, the master programme and postgraduate coordination teams organise ad hoc focus group discussions with students to understand their satisfaction with the programmes better. Finally, ITM holds specific thematic alumni meetings and focus groups to gather input and feedback on challenges in tropical medicine and international public health. This feedback helps shape ITM's educational programmes, ensuring their ongoing relevance and quality.
External assessment
The ITM master programmes are assessed every six years by a panel of independent experts approved by NVAO. In 2024, all three programmes received positive accreditation decisions. The accreditation report and decision documents are accessible here:
Decision document MSc in Public Health
Decision document MSc in Global One Health: Diseases at the Human-Animal Interface
Decision document MSc in Tropical Medicine
Apart from the official NVAO programme accreditation and recommendations, ITM actively seeks external assessments of its educational programmes and quality. This includes:
Sharing best practices within the Flemish higher education community in a system-wide analysis
Requesting an external evaluation of its educational activities and scholarship programmes, conducted by the German company Syspons
ITM is also member of tropEd, the Network for Education in International Health. The tropEd network comprises a community of institutions from around the globe that offer postgraduate education in international and global health. TropEd enables the mobility of learners and lecturers, the exchange of interdisciplinary experiences and the establishment of common standards in education and training for International and Global health.
Finally, based upon its Erasmus Policy Statement and statute, ITM was awarded the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education (ECHE) 2021-2027 by the European Commission.
Educational dashboard
The Dashboard student data is designed as a monitoring tool for all ITM staff involved in the management and administration of ITM's educational programmes. It provides real-time aggregate data for short courses, continuing education courses, and postgraduate and master programmes from the academic year 2022-2023 onward. For each programme/course, it displays the numbers of applicants, newly enrolled students, and graduates, along with the numbers and percentages of student diversity in terms of gender, scholarships, age, nationality, continent of origin, and professional background. Additionally, the dashboard offers a detailed analysis of master students' enrolment duration and monitors student numbers and diversity KPIs for the policy period 2025-2030.
(3) A continuous dedication of staff on all organisational levels
Multiple bodies on different levels are responsible for fostering educational quality at ITM to discuss assessment results, remedy identified deficiencies and implement necessary improvements.
The academic management of education is carried out in the three scientific departments. Every department has a Departmental Education Coordinator who manages the educational policy at the departmental level. The departmental education coordinator is – for the master programmes – part of a larger coordination team that takes care of the daily management and coordination of the master programmes. This coordination team comprises co-coordinators, course secretariats and/or course directors. The course director is academically responsible for a master programme. The Education Office, as a central policy office, provides policy advice to ITM’s management and supports policy implementation in the departments.
To allow sufficient staff involvement in education at ITM and to ensure information sharing and coordination between departments and between departments and the central level, ITM has structured interdepartmental bodies with designated responsibilities. In that overall structure, ITM has a bottom-up approach where discussions start with a consultation of staff that is mainly involved in education and end with decisions (if need be) at the higher level.
The Desk for Education Support and Coordination (DESC) meets twice a month to discuss all educational coordination matters and to prepare policy-related matters regarding education. Policy-related issues are discussed in the Education Policy Committee, which is an advisory board of the Academic Council. At ITM, the Academic Council provides the Director and the Management Committee, among others, education policy-related advice.