Most students who dream of studying abroad imagine spending their days on the coast of Spain, wrapped up in the bustle of London, or down under in Australia. Few envision themselves studying in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, a country slightly smaller than Texas that lies at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. But a new nursing program hopes to change all of that.
The Workforce Development program, spearheaded by Nurses International (NI), an international consulting firm based in Greenville, SC, aims to increase the supply of American nurses by sending students who are having trouble getting into U.S. schools to Ukraine to obtain their Associate Degrees in Nursing (ADN) or Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degrees. In 2005, American nursing schools rejected almost 150,000 applications from qualified people, mainly due to a shortage of faculty to teach the students, according to the National League for Nursing.
“We see this program as one alternative for educating more American students to become nurses,” says Bill Coleman, BS, MBA, president of NI. “If I had my preferences, we’d be enlarging our nursing schools here. But you can’t do that in the environment where we’re losing faculty members faster than we’re educating students.”
Ukraine is an ideal country in which to train nurses because, under the old Soviet system, it served as the hub of educational training for the entire Soviet Union, turning out most of the country’s scientists, mathematicians, economists, doctors, and nurses, Coleman says. Even today–15 years after gaining its independence–the country has 122 nursing schools and a surplus of nurses.
“Ukrainian nursing schools graduate an average of three nursing students for every nursing job,” says Dianne Kuhl, vice president of NI. “Ukrainians recognize that in order for their nursing schools to survive, they’re going to have to bring in other students. They are thrilled because this is a whole new influx of students for them and they can keep their doors open.”
Under the program, two tracks of study will be offered: one for students seeking their ADNs and the other for those seeking their BSNs. Upon completion of the program, students will receive a Ukrainian nursing degree. They will then come back to the United States, where they will need to take the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) and the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) qualifying exam (if their state requires it) to receive American certification.
Rather than take away instructors from the already depleted U.S. faculty, the program will employ qualified Ukrainian instructors to teach the curriculum. NI has been training these instructors for the past year and a half so they are prepared to teach the courses in the same way that they are taught on American campuses, Coleman says. The Ukrainian government has also pledged $7 million to aid the training of these professors so they are in line with U.S. accreditation standards, he says.
Tuition for the program would be $6,000 per year, with living expenses estimated at about $2,000-$3,000 per year. However, all students will have the opportunity to partner with a hospital and receive an academic scholarship in exchange for a work commitment, Kuhl says.
Also, although the cost of tuition without scholarships is comparable to that of many U.S. nursing school programs, the cost of living in Ukraine is significantly less than in the United States, he says.
Editor’s Note: This story is adapted from Recruitment & Retention Monthly, HCPro Inc. For more information about NI’s Workforce Development Program, visit http://nursesinternational.us and http://uaih.nursesinternational.us.
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