Trends
Nursing Education in Rwanda is evolving, with more nurses being enrolled into the baccalaureate Nursing program. More male nurses are being admitted into the Nursing program, including the faith based Schools of Nurses which previously did not admit male students. Although most schools of Nursing are short staffed, the schools also have a few faculty who are prepared at Master’s degree level in various specialties, including Nursing Education. Most Schools of Nursing have a Simulation Laboratory that are used for clinical teaching for both Midwifery and Nursing. All the campuses of the University of Rwanda are equipped with teleconferencing equipment and are therefore, also offering distance E-learning Nursing program to upgrade diploma nurses to baccalaureate nursing.
Challenges
Due to shortage of faculty, nurses are still teaching non-nursing subjects such as microbiology and anatomy and physiology among others. Nursing education is moving towards learner centered environments (Valiga, 2012), yet classes are large and teaching strategies used are not always student centered. Teaching generation Y students using traditional teaching strategies may pose a challenge to this cohort of learners (Eckleberry-Hunt & Tucciarone, 2011). Clinical supervision of undergraduate students is limited given the student numbers and the distances from the Schools of Nursing where students are attached, as there are not always resources available for faculty travel for follow up of students. The curriculum is congested and not harmonized across the different Schools of nursing. Many nursing programs still struggle with letting go of content and decongesting the curriculum (Benner, 2012; Dalley, Candela & Benzel-Lindley, 2008). Issues of overloading courses with content and using student centered teaching strategies are addressed in the curriculum review workshops and curriculum assignments. Resources such as teaching equipment for simulation laboratories, books, video conferencing, and journals also pose limitations.
Opportunities
Evolving regulation requirements have been used to both adopt new requirements of the Higher Education Council and address curriculum changes as well as harmonizing the curriculum. Nursing education workshops have also been offered to faculty to address gaps in teaching. The Smart Rwanda Master Plan (Ministry of Youth and ICT, 2015) can transform nursing education in Rwanda through e-learning courses. There is a global shortage of nursing faculty (Nardi & Guryko, 2013) however, Rwanda’s nursing faculty is young and vibrant, and can transform nursing education and practice given the opportunity. The consortium of the United States Institutes (USI) have donated teaching resources and the twinning of local faculty with USI faculty have transformed nursing education and practice in Rwanda.
Significance to Nursing
Nursing is the backbone of the health workforce in many countries including Rwanda and any health goals and targets set by the international community and the government require a well-educated nursing workforce to transform the targets through practice. Nurses are pivotal to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and addressing the social determinants of health. Therefore, an increase in the nursing workforce will go a long way towards improving practice and the health of the Rwandans.
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