The government has received a total of 1,554 suggestions on the draft nursing education curriculum which was released by the nursing education regulator, Indian Nursing Council, in January. This information was shared by Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ashwini Kumar Choubey in the Lok Sabha today.
Mr Choubey was replying to questions on nursing education asked by S. Muniswamy.
The last date for submitting suggestions on the proposed curriculum was January 24.
However, no decision has been taken in this regard as on date, the minister added.
In the draft nursing education curriculum, class 12th pass students of all the three streams--science, arts and commerce--will be eligible for BSc Nursing course.
The Council's draft proposal reads "candidate with Science/ Arts/ Humanities/ Commerce who have passed the 12th Standard examination (10+2) and must have obtained a minimum of 45% marks in the core/ elective/ academic subjects taken together and passed English individually," would be eligible for BSc Nursing course.
The B.Sc. nursing degree program is a four-year fulltime program comprising eight semesters, which prepares a student to become a registered nurse qualified to practice in a variety of settings in either public/ government or private healthcare settings.
The proposal comes after the Council had decided, in 2019, to opt for a single entry level for nursing by phasing out the General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM) programme. While GNM is a diploma course, BSc nursing is a four year course.
Admission to GNM courses will be stopped from 2021. Currently 3215 GNM schools run in the country and produce 1.2 lakh nurses in a year.
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