Colleges urged to team up for nursing degree courses

Star: IPOH: Colleges offering nursing courses are encouraged to do twinning programmes with local and foreign universities.
Higher Education Ministry deputy director-general Prof Dr Mahani Zainal Abidin said currently only four out of the 27 colleges nationwide offered degree courses.
“It will also make nursing a promising vocation for the youngsters at colleges,” she told reporters after conferring a private institution of higher learning status to Hospital Fatimah’s School of Nursing here yesterday.
Dr Mahani said nursing was in high demand among school leavers and the ministry received a lot of applications to set up new nursing colleges.
“There are a lot of applications but we will not simply approve them. There are many aspects that need to be examined before we can give our approval,” she said.
She also said the ministry was studying the different fee structures imposed by nursing colleges nationwide.
“We cannot understand why there are big differences in the fees imposed by the colleges,” she said, citing one college which charged about RM50,000 for a diploma. “We can’t determine if the RM50,000 fee is reasonable as we realise nursing courses involve a lot of equipment and practical work,” she said.
On a related matter, Dr Mahani urged colleges to encourage more males to take up nursing as a career.
She said the profession needed more male nurses to tend to elderly male or Muslim patients who might be uncomfortable with female nurses.