Reuters recently posted a short review article titled, “E-Learning Matches Traditional Training for Doctors, Nurses: Review“.

The World Health Organization commissioned a review of existing studies to assess the effectiveness of e-Learning for undergraduate health professional education. The main outcome of their study was that…

“Millions more students worldwide could train as doctors and nurses using electronic learning, which is just as effective as traditional medical training…”

This, of course, is a fantastic endorsement of eLearning…and better late than never. And to be honest it made me think “well yea…duh!” But then I realized there must be more to it. I was curious.

I found www.who.int, and did a search for eLearning and found the report. You can download it here.

The entire report is quite good and filled with content useful for anyone looking for data to prove a business case for eLearning.

But simply reading the Foreward made me proud to be in the business of eLearning. If you’ve been in the industry for any modest period of time you have no doubt encountered those who STILL aren’t quite sure about the validity of eLearning. And that can be frustrating when you believe strongly in your chosen profession.

It’s incredibly validating when a global organization recognizes the value of eLearning and publicly promotes it’s use as a big part of solving a global problem. The foreward ends with the following statement:

I encourage you to download and read the report.

In many ways this report is a good reminder that eLearning is alive and well. And that, while 1st world countries may be ready to move on, the rest of the world is finding eLearning valuable and a necessary part of solving very big and important challenges.