Age Increased For Teaching Faculties Up To 70 Years In Nursing Schools; Steps To Reform Nursing Education In The Country

Under the Ministry Of Health And Family Welfare, the concern of increasing the teaching faculty and increasing the skills of the nursing personnel has been raised. In this regard, Shri Jagat Prakash Nadda has mentioned that steps are being taken to improve the quality and quantity of the nursing personnel.

Thus, one major reform that has been brought in this direction is that the Age of the teaching faculty has been increased to 70 years. In addition to that Relaxation for opening M.Sc. (N) programme has also been provided. Under this, the Super speciality Hospital can start M.Sc.(N) without having an undergraduate programme and Relaxation of the student-teacher ratio for M.Sc (N) programme has been relaxed from 1:5 to 1:10.

Other major reforms that are being proposed and are being implemented include changing the student-patient ratio from 1:5 to 1:3. Apart from that major infrastructure changes like The land from 5 acres has been relaxed to construct the building of 54,000 sq. ft. for school/college of Nursing and Hostel.

Not only there has been relaxing policies for the for opening M.Sc. (N) programme but also there are relaxing norms for teaching faculty to start B.Sc. (N) Programme. This includes at least 2 M.Sc. (N) faculty to be made available; Qualification and Experience of the Nursing Teachers have been relaxed; and Sharing of the teaching faculty for both Diploma and Graduate Programme.

To make the nursing training even more accessible the Distance from school to the hospital has been relaxed from 15 km to 30 km. But for the hilly and tribal areas, the distance is 50 Km.

Also, in addition to the above-mentioned steps, 06 weeks training is imparted by using Standard Based management and Recognition approach. This, in turn, is believed to strengthen the foundation of pre-service education of Auxiliary Nursing Midwifery (ANM) to result in providing better health provider.

Apart from these steps, the government is also according special attention to improve the quantity and capacity of the General Nursing Midwifery (GNM) and Auxiliary Nursing Midwifery (ANM) schools at all India level. To do this funds has been provided to the various existing 112 Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANM) and 136 General Nurse-Midwives (GNM) Schools in the country.

27 states in India has General Nursing Midwifery (GNM) and Auxiliary Nursing Midwifery (ANM) schools. However, the states of Manipur, Mizoram and Meghalaya do not have any ANM schools.