State-of-the- art education facilities to be built at SCS

Education facilities for students in the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health (SCS) are set to improve significantly thanks to a new multi-million dollar building initiative funded by Monash University.

The University has agreed to fund the construction of state-of-the-art education facilities at Monash Medical Centre (MMC), at a cost of potentially tens of millions of dollars. 

“Education facilities at MMC have been outstripped by growth in numbers of learners,” said Head of SCS Professor Eric Morand. “Despite being probably the largest clinical school in Australia we currently have some of the least generous and lowest quality space for students.”

“According to best practice every student should have up to 11 square metres of teaching space, however our students and staff have access to only a fraction of this.”

SCS campuses currently provide 90,000 student placement days per year and the Faculty has forecast an increase in student enrolments from 400 effective full time students to 600 students by 2020.

“Monash is currently ranked number 33 in the world for medical education and we need to offer a student learning experience that reflects that position,” added Professor Morand.

“We hope for the new education building to have connections to the hospital as well as the research precinct, including the new Translational Research Facility, due for completion in 2015.”

To be architecturally designed with state of the art outcomes in mind, the new building will incorporate natural light, open plan teaching areas and a range of innovative work spaces to create better opportunities for collaborations.

“We want to make a statement with this building. Education is incredibly important to Monash and SCS and we want to transform our students’ education experience.”