Foundation for Professional Development

Foundation for Professional Development (FPD) application, prospectus, ranking, Contacts, address

About Foundation for Professional Development (FPD)

The Foundation for Professional Development (FPD) was established in 1997 as a department in the South African Medical Association (SAMA). In 2000, FPD was registered as a separate legal entity (Registration Number: 2000/002641/07). The South African Medical Association, a non-profit company, has a 90% shareholding, while the remainder of the shares are employee-owned.

The FPD strategic direction focuses on rapidly expanding FPD’s educational offering (both formal qualifications at under- and postgraduate level and professional development courses). This will involve expanding the number of FPD schools, curricular development and instructional design capacity and leveraging FPD Group ICT capacity to enter into strategic partnerships with international e-learning providers and expand FPD’s offering of blended and e-learning courses. In designing curricula FPD will embrace a user-centric design and incorporate ethical decision making in curricular design during this strategic cycle. The massive shortage of healthcare professionals in Africa, has been highlighted respectively, by the World Health Organisation and the Academy of Sciences of South Africa’s report on Reconceptualising Health Professional Education.

The latter report on the potential role that the private sector could play in alleviating such shortages. FPD is responding to this challenge by entering the undergraduate health professional education market through its Nursing School. FPD will also counter weak local economic growth by exploring opportunities in the sub-Saharan Africa region by actively expanding FPD’s products and services in the region.

Leveraging FPD’s registration as a higher education institution is strategically important as there are substantial opportunities linked to the increasing emphasis government is placing on addressing youth unemployment, as well as middle class aspirations around formal qualifications as entry to the job market. In response to this opportunity FPD will expand the number of learnerships offered via the SHIPS Department and focus on registering higher certificate courses that could act as bridging programmes for entry to university for students who did not achieve “matric exemption”.

Admission information

If you are applying to Foundation for Professional Development (FPD), here are some of the most useful information that you need to Know about Foundation for Professional Development (FPD), Check the links below for more details