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Detailed Partnership Objectives Related to Baccalaureate Education in Nursing
In order to place a university nursing curriculum in context, there are a number of matters relating to university level education in nursing that must be made explicit. Some of these matters include: guiding principles of nursing curricula; the health care needs of the population to be served by the graduates; the components of the proposed curriculum; current faculty knowledge and skills; academic preparation of the potential student body; physical facilities and resources; the local criteria for nurse registration and degree granting; as well as student admission and progression policies.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
1. The curriculum must be designed to prepare practitioners to meet the health care needs of the community it serves.
2. The desired outcomes of the graduate of the program can be articulated as the knowledge and skills required of the graduate.
3. The curriculum must be flexible enough to meet the changing health care needs of the population it serves.
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Current Issues Influencing Curriculum Design:
Despite a number of development initiatives over the past decades, the population of the rural Punjab is open to a number of disadvantages and is subject to the kinds of health challenges that are typical in equatorial developing countries. Among the specific causes of poor health associated with this of region is lack of safe drinking water, lack of basic sanitation, and crowded living conditions. Pollution of the water, food, soil and air is widespread. Rapid population growth, especially in urban areas, as well as the expansion of industrialization has exaggerated these problems. Additional complicating factors include illiteracy, as well as prejudicial customs, beliefs and cultural patterns. The development of health care services and facilities has been very uneven throughout India, and there is inadequate primary health care.
Graduates of the Guru Nanak College of Nursing will serve the health care needs of the Dahan-Kaleran region, including five rural districts, with a total population of about 200,000. Among the most pressing health problems faced by the people of this region are communicable diseases, including malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid, chickenpox, diarrhoeal diseases and acute upper respiratory infections. A second major source of health problems is the nutritional deficiencies associated with poverty, including xeropthalmia (vitamin deficiency blindness), goitre (iodine deficiency), nutritional anemia, lathyrism and flurosis.
India is a union of 26 states and 7 union territories. Each state is responsible for the development of its system of health care delivery. In 1977, the Government of India launched a Rural Health Scheme, based on the primary health care approach as outlined in the Alma Ata Health For All document. Although this did provide India with a national health policy, there has been no development of a national health service to accommodate it. The limited financial resources that are available tend to be allocated to urban areas, and there have been few benefits realized by the rural areas, where nearly 74% of the population resides.
The baccalaureate graduate of the Guru Nanak College of Nursing will be expected to contribute to the changing needs of rural Punjab through the provision of excellent nursing care, and as a member of the team of health care professionals. Graduates will be expected to function independently and in collaboration with others in a wide variety of settings, and will distinguish themselves through leadership in both prevention of disease and care during illness. They will be expected to contribute to the development of a more human and scientific health care system for the Punjab, and will accomplish this through an understanding of international standards of excellence in promotive, preventive and restorative health.
In order to meet the changing needs of the community through expanded nursing roles in a variety of settings, graduates will require knowledge and skills related to basic and applied nursing science, critical and analytic thinking, population health, effective interpersonal relations, leadership and decision-making, and ethical practice.
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Curriculum and Resources:
Curriculum: The components of a curriculum needed to prepare nurses with the knowledge and skills required of practice must clarified and carefully articulated. During the meeting at the UBC SoN in May 1999, information about the current curricula of the Guru Nanak College of Nursing and the UBC School of Nursing was shared and discussed in detail between the members of the two faculties. Both the nursing and the support courses within these curricula will require considerably more in-depth examination over time to determine the components of the UBC curriculum that will be most suited to meeting the needs of the Guru Nanak College. While some superficial elements of the UBC program may be shared in their existing form, much of the content, pedagogical strategy, and sequencing will have to be worked out to match the context, resources and needs in India.
Physical Facilities and Resources: The Guru Nanak College has some recognized gaps in available resources for the delivery of a baccalaureate nursing curriculum. Explicit identification of needs with regard to classrooms, library, teaching labs, textbooks, computers, audio-visual, and clinical resources will be needed throughout the partnerhips project to support the curriculum.
Student Policies: Information shared during the May 1999 meetings on policies of the two educational institutions included: student admission criteria and numbers; student evaluation methods, both clinical and theory; progression standards, including achievements required to progress from one level to the next; policies related to academic/clinical failures. Policies relevant to the Indian cultural context and international university standards will have to be developed in partnership.
Evaluation Plans: Plans for on-going evaluation of the Guru Nanak Baccalaureate Program and of the graduates must be developed. These would include, as a minimum, plans to determine and meet international level standards of approval of educational programs and plans for follow-up of the graduates.
Program Approval Standards: The Guru Nanak program currently meets criteria of educational programs of the Guru Nanak Nursing College Advisory Committee, Guru Nanak Dev University, and the Indian Nursing Council. Graduates receive their nurse registration through the Nursing Council of the Punjab. RNACB and CNA Standards for approval and accreditation can be used as a foundational document to work toward internationally recognized standards over time.
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Learning Environment at GNC |
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