APOS [Alliance of Prosthetic Orthotic Schools] is a development milestone encouraging collaboration between prosthetics and orthotics schools. This initiative is funded by the Nippon Foundation.
For a number of years CSPO has facilitated this collaborative programme. The programme includes annual meetings of the schools' management and staff exchanges. This develops the capacity of the human resources within the institutes involved as well as building international and regional networks and improving the quality of rehabilitation and education services.
The objectives of the regional schools' collaboration are to:
- Share knowledge, skills and teaching materials to enhance Prosthetic & Orthotic education in the region amongst existing (and soon to be founded) Prosthetic & Orthotic schools;
- Establish a focus group of educators from the Prosthetic & Orthotic schools in Cambodia, Thailand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to avoid duplication of work;
- Facilitate the inclusion of other schools into this regional activities;
- Initiate regular meetings between representatives from Prosthetic & Orthotic schools;
- Co-ordinate and facilitate national staff exchanges between partner Prosthetic & Orthotic schools;
- Build regional capacity;
- Facilitate the exchange of teaching materials;
- Transfer technology;
- Encourage cross-cultural understanding.
