I thought I would share something that might interest the IENs (internationally educated nurses) who visit my blog. I am aware that some of my GNIE classmates think (and verbalized) that the "barriers to entry" -- such as the need for additional short courses or GNIE training -- is a way for the B.C. or Canadian government to rip-off foreign trained nurses (i.e. through the course fees earned). They are wrong -- BIG FAT WRONG.
Extract from the Langley Advance article dated 30-Aug-2011 above.
"The university's Faculty of Community & Health Studies has received $425,000 from the Ministry of Advanced Education to offer an additional intake of the Graduate Nurse Internationally Educated Re-entry (GNIE) Program in 2012."
That additional intake of GNIE students is my Jan-2012 cohort of 2 classes (17 students and 18 students) -- a total of 35 students in all. If you do the math, you'd realize that each GNIE student costs the B.C. government around $12,143. Compare that to each student's GNIE course expense of around $8K.
Bearing in mind that there is no shortage of B.C. locals wanting to become a nurse (e.g. the wait list to enter a B.C. nursing course can be 2-3 years), why would/should the B.C. government pour money to train foreign nurses? Something for IENs to think about before launching into hissing fits about "barriers to entry".
p.s. I come from a country (Singapore) where foreign nurses do not have the benefit of GNIE or other short bridging courses. I can speak from experience of the chaos created by discrepancies (from IENs) in nursing education/training, skills, practices, language/accent and a lack of cultural adaptation.
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