Changes in nursing education

The millennium has become the metaphor for the extraordinary challenges and opportunities available to the nursing profession and to those academic institutions responsible for preparing the next generation of nurses. Signal change is all around us, defining not only what we teach, but also how we teach our students. Transformations taking place in nursing and nursing education have been driven by major socioeconomic factors, as well as by developments in health care delivery and professional issues unique to nursing (Crowley, 2013). In the Philippines, a decade ago, Filipino nurses were in high demand globally due to our standardized and unified Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) curriculum (Divinagracia, 2006). Our nurses are preferred most over other contemporaries because of level of knowledge and the type of care they render to their patients (Bengan, 2011). As a result, many parents send their children to nursing to have a greener pasture and as a way to escape from poverty. But several changes have already occurred including the dwindling employment of nurses locally and abroad and compromised quality of nursing education. The great increased in nursing enrollees lead to massive establishment of nursing schools and colleges that do not even produce quality nurses. Most of these new schools were not even accredited to have passed the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) standards (Estella, 2005). As a result, a decline in the passing rate from 54% in 2004, down to 39% in 2009 becomes noticeable (Professional Regulation Commission, 2011). There is also surplus of nursing graduates who are unemployed and underemployed. As of February 2012, about 400,000 nurses are unemployed as claimed by CHED Executive Director JulitoVitriolo and not to mention the underemployed (GMA, 2012).