Moving with the Times by Sreelekha Nair

Author:Sreelekha Nair [Nair, Sreelekha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138662582
Google: sEkfjwEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2016-01-20T03:52:31+00:00

Educational Decision-making

In general, secondary education—schooling involving 10+2, and specifically examination results in the 10th grade—determines the direction that students’ specialised training or post-secondary level education will take. In nursing, too, the two years of education after the 10th grade become important. GNM is the minimum level of training required for registering as a nurse and is the most common qualification among staff nurses in Indian hospitals. As mentioned earlier, this is a three-and-a-half year diploma after the 12th grade or a pre-degree.3 Nursing schools in Kerala and public schools of nursing elsewhere admit only students who pass the 12th grade with science subjects, namely, physics, chemistry and biology. But there are private nursing schools (recognised by the nursing councils of the respective states) mainly in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, and in some northern states like Uttar Pradesh, that admit students from any subject stream, including arts, humanities and commerce. They demand donations for admission into nursing programmes. This has led to allegations that the ‘mushrooming’ of nursing schools has not helped the nursing profession; rather, they lead to a dilution of the programme of study and a drop in the quality of nursing education which is anyway very precarious in small towns and rural areas.

The nurses in this study had all finished their pre-nursing studies in Kerala.4 As shown in Table 3.1, Most of them (102 of 150) finished their two years education after matriculation in science courses whereas 42 in the sample completed their course in arts or commerce before pursuing their studies in nursing. When they found it difficult to get a place in Kerala’s nursing schools, many chose to go to nursing schools in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka or Tamil Nadu. My sample includes women who work as ‘staff nurses’ in small hospitals and nursing homes that are under-qualified for work in their present capacity. Among them, some are only qualified to be ANMs, since they only completed a year-and-a-half certificate course, while some merely attended a course in an unrecognised training centre for which they never even received an official certificate. Six in the sample either did not join 10+2 courses or did not complete them and they belong to this group. Table 3.2 shows the number of nurses in the sample according to the state in which they completed their nursing studies.

TABLE 3.1 Number of Nurses from Science and Non-Science Background in Plus-two/Pre-degree Course Age Science Arts/Commerce Not completed Total

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