FACULTY FOCUS campusreview. com. au
The deans’ list
Heads of nursing schools grapple with big issues all the time; here’ s what’ s front of mind for three such leaders now.
Compiled by Amie Larter
The reforms of the education minister, Christopher Pyne, have been a hot-button topic over the last few months – thrusting higher education into the spotlight.
Nursing school leaders haven’ t been at the forefront of all the media attention but they face many of the same issues as leaders across all areas of study, such as questions of pedagogy, the role of technology, and funding changes.
In addition to these, they also handle concerns specific to the profession; nursing leaders are now having to think about balancing the need to address pending industry shortages with an increasing oversupply of graduates.
Here, three school leaders discuss the state of higher education in their field and where they would like to see it go next.
PROFESSOR KAREN FRANCIS, HEAD OF THE SCHOOL OF NURSING, MIDWIFERY AND INDIGENOUS HEALTH, CHARLES STURT UNIVERSITY
We’ ve seen a real change, I think, in the level of knowledge that’ s required at the undergraduate level, particularly around the critical thinking aspect of practice.
We [ are ] also focused on developing leadership skills and working in teams, as well as being autonomous in making independent, evidence-based decisions about what is it we as nurses do.
One of the things we’ ve tried to do is to ensure that our graduates are able to defend their actions and argue a case, irrespective of whom that case is being argued with – improving the status of nursing decisions through being able to defend actions initiated by nurses. So obviously, evidence-based practice is important.
We’ ve also started to see increasing numbers of graduate entry-to-practice programs being offered, leading to initial registration as a nurse, and I think that’ s an important move. This change in entry-to-practice options obviously reflects what’ s happening in the other health disciplines. What we’ re trying to do through that process is advance the practice of initially registered nurses.
TECHNOLOGY’ S IMPACT It’ s revolutionising the way we do business. In our organisation, we are in a major state of change, as are most universities. Given the nature of a regional university that is multi-campus, the use of technologies is necessary to ensure efficient and effective operations.
The use of technology to enhance the education experience has expanded exponentially, enabling the adoption of new approaches to teaching and learning. Using innovative technologies, we are able to expose students to a broader range of simulated opportunities that they can then work through to develop the skills [ I mentioned earlier ], including critical thinking, drawing on evidence to defend their decisions and working in and managing teams.
THE BUDGET CRUNCH Cuts are definitely making life hard, not only for us but also for clinical partners. [ Everyone ] wants work-ready graduates but the only way they become work ready is to have the opportunity to practice nursing.
Unfortunately, the funding we get to support nursing programs doesn’ t cover the actual costs, particularly those associated with workplace learning. We are under constant pressure to deliver our programs within allocated budgets. Rising costs associated with accessing workplace learning venues have forced us, and many other providers of nursing education, to reduce this aspect of the curriculum to the [ minimum 800 ] hours required by ANMAC.
This is a challenge for industry as well as the university and health sectors.
A FOUR-YEAR MODEL At this point in time I doubt that a three-year degree is still relevant. I think we need to move to four years to align with international standards and the other Australian health disciplines. The fourth year could be an embedded internship year that may include 12 months in practice with additional course work or just an extra year of course work followed by a supported graduate year that I believe [ would need to be ] standardised. To try and cover the content required to educate a [ student ] who will register as a generalist nurse in the three-year bachelor degree is becoming increasingly difficult. If you look at all the health programs, nursing and midwifery are the only ones that are three years, [ although ] Curtin offers a three-and-a-half-year pre-service program.
The longer you’ ve got the students in a supported learning environment the more likely they are to graduate with a better skill set.
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