Challenges and opportunities in the implementation of competency-based medical education – A cross-sectional survey among medical faculty in India

BACKGROUND: In India, competency-based medical education (CBME) is gaining foothold to transform the medical student into a doctor fulfilling community and societal needs. With that end in view the teaching faculty are getting sensitized and trained by the National Faculty Development Program (FDP). We aimed to assess the awareness about FDP among teaching faculty in medical colleges and study the attitude and perceived barriers to implementation of CBME. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional, electronically distributed, questionnaire-based study was conducted among medical faculty in India. The questionnaire identified participants’ awareness, attitude, and perceived barriers to CBME. Descriptive analysis was employed for continuous variables and internal comparison employing Chi-square test with α <0.05 for statistical significance. RESULTS: Among 251 participants 90.2% faculties from private institutes had undergone FDP as against 71% from Government sector (P = 0.008). We observed that 92.4% were aware, 80.2% had undergone Curriculum Implementation Support Program and 95.2% did agree that CBME will improve the medical education system. Major challenges perceived were high student to faculty ratio (67.7%), ill developed infrastructure (41.4%) and difficulties in assessment (41.1%). The popular solutions suggested were to increase faculty strength (73.7%), improve infrastructure (69.3%), extra remuneration (35.9%) and increase administrative support (30.7%). There was significant difference of opinions between teaching faculty of government and private sector (P = 0.017). CONCLUSION: Most of the medical faculty are aware of the need and have acquired a positive attitude towards enforcement of CBME. However, significant barriers do exist in the form of manpower and resources which need to be addressed.