Nursing education: Determine job prospects when choosing programmes
THERE has been an increasing incidence of unemployment among nursing graduates, revealed Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) president, Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam during the recent launching of the Malaysia Indian Youth Association. Addressing Indian youths who are potential enrollees, Dr Subramaniam suggested that job prospects upon completion of programmes must be determined first.
Although lacking statistics, his observation is based on the number of graduates coming to his office to find job assistance. He also said that many of the private college nursing graduates had registered with the Malaysian Nursing Board but have yet to find work. To further the dilemma, most of the jobless nurses are also faced with the burden of repaying study loans amounting between RM 60,000 and 70,000.
Upon graduation, the PTPTN study loan must be repaid even if the graduate has not obtained a job.
The jobless state of nursing graduates is also attributed to the seemingly uncontrolled number of intakes in private institutions offering nursing programmes despite the nursing programmes and enrolment freeze implemented last year.
In a recent memorandum submitted by Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj , a member of Parliament for Sungai Siput to the Ministry of Higher Education cited that the government has allowed some 61 private institutions to offer nursing programmes, which accommodate approximately 37,500 nursing undergraduates .
As of 2010, some 7,665 nursing graduates from private institutions took the Nursing Board examination, yet only 70.1 % passed compared to the passing rate of 98.4 % amongst graduates from Health Ministry colleges. Still, only 42.7 per cent of nursing graduates from private higher education institutions in 2010 have acquired jobs at hospitals and clinics.
Overall, there are approximately 71,000 unemployed graduates ( in all programmes) in the country.
Signs of times
Yet, considering the optimistic prospects of the medical and healthcare industry worldwide and the shift of developments in these sectors, nursing should remain in demand and have more post offerings to be filled.
However, the skills set demanded are more competitive now. Crucial to this demand is the type of curricula offered by nursing institutions to be able to produce nursing graduates who are not only certified but are also technology-capable.
Citing a 2010 Asia Pacific Market report by Frost and Sullivan, this year 2012, there will be an intensified government focus on primary and community-based healthcare as well as push for mobile technology for healthcare services delivery. This also pertains to the Malaysian goal to achieve the multimedia super corridor project by 2020, which will enhance healthcare standards with telemedicine and medical informatics as vital components.
Emerging diseases likewise impact skills and management competency of nurses to cope with current trends in both private and public hospitals that are moving towards digitised diagnostics solutions as well new modalities in drug/treatment administration.
Despite the growing demand, unemployment still looms.
As a solution, Dr Subramaniam said that opportunities in other allied fields will be looked into for the unemployed graduates. ” “We are trying to see if they can be retrained for employment in other related fields such as childcare and geriatric care,” he said.
Nursing education is no.6th in popular online degree list
According to Eduventures, a US-based higher education research and consulting firm, nursing ranks 4th in its top online degree programmes based on enrolment, while healthcare ranks 6th, being dubbed by the U.S. Department of Labor as one of the fastest growing careers to date. Moreover, the labour agency also indicated that employment of RNs is projected to grow by over half a million jobs from 2008-2018. While Malaysia has not caught on yet with the popularity of online degree education for Nursing, one local institution has already implemented the distance learning scheme to one of its post-registration programme offering. IMU offers a 2-year programme that will make use of an online learning management system called Virtual Education for Nursing Science (VENus ), a system designed by a team comprising discipline experts, an instructional designer and a webmaster.
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