Being a service-oriented discipline, nursing is a comprehensively practised subject that borrows more from use of scientific techniques. As a profession, it forms one of the most critical partners in the health sector. It takes up extremely critical position in any given health facility as the role played by nurses can never be overlooked. According to Wei J., nursing education generally starts by giving students basic nursing knowledge, fundamental concepts as well as nursing skills which provides them with knowledge and understanding on how best to fill the societal vacuum that exists in the nursing field. Here, we are going to compare nursing education between China and Australia. We will consider the following subtopics and use them as the parameters for drawing up the comparisons; Basic nursing education as well as training methods, continuing education, curriculum provision, evaluation of nursing education and teaching forms and characteristics.
Basic Education and Training Methods
In China, nursing as a discipline is categorized into five levels that includes technical secondary, college, undergraduate, postgraduate and PHD. The technical secondary and colleges remains the majority despite the rapid development of nursing education in China in the last 30 years (Deng, 2015). The number of doctorate and masters programs remains considerably low giving an indication that continued education remains limited (Deng, 2015).
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On the other hand nursing in Australia is divided into three levels namely; Undergraduate, master’s and doctoral. Undergraduate programs are the commonest nursing education in Australia. Just like in China there is a provision for masters and doctoral programs which ensure that there is a considerable number of nurses who posses doctoral and masters degrees.
According to Meng HG and Fan Y, while Australia borrows mainly on the idea of Bio-Logical-Psychological-Socio-Medical Model that concentrates more on equipping learners with knowledge about humanities and community nursing course, China focuses more on clinical nursing. In Australia, it is ensured that theoretical learning and practice are closely connected while the Chinese system gives more attention to classification of clinical diseases while clinical practice only brought on board after all the theatrical syllabus has been completed.
Teaching Forms and Characteristics
In Australia, students are made to appreciate learning as a combination of theoretical studies and teaching methods while subjecting them to inspirational thinking as well as ability activation. In China, teachers adopt the traditional form of teaching which requires students to listen as their teachers explain. Here there much emphasis to ensure that operational steps and procedures are standardized. Unlike in Australia, clinical practice in China is done in the final year of study making it possible to disconnect theoretical teaching and practice teaching successfully. Below is a table to illustrate the above differences.
Table1: Characteristics of nursing education between Australia and China.
| Items | Australia | China |
| Course distribution | Few in basic courses, many professional | Many basic courses, few humanity courses |
| Teaching procedure | Geriatric-adult-child | Base-theory-clinical practice |
| Highlight of the course | Humanities and life nurses courses | Clinical nursing |
| Main teaching form | Self learning | Lecture |
| Teaching guiding idea | Patient-centred holistic nursing | Course-centred theory knowledge |
| Main test form | Written and professional accreditation | Written |
Curriculum Provisions
Deng suggested that most nursing colleges in China have decided to stick with the traditional form of curriculum commonly referred to as Discipline-centred model which mainly takes into account the basic medical courses, elementary courses and nursing clinical practice (Deng, 2015). In Australia, the Universities that offer undergraduate nursing courses ensure that their curriculum comprises of clinical practice, fundamental nursing, biological sciences, social sciences, nursing research and application.
Evaluation of Nursing Education
In Australia, the evaluation criteria comprises of a series of procedure which includes both oral and written book reports, clinical ability tests as well as case discussion. This is jointly conducted by the Association of States Board of Nursing and State Government departments of education which are tasked to review the education standards of nursing as a discipline.
Comparatively, evaluation methods are mainly centred on theory making written examination the basis of evaluation. In recent years, the student evaluation has changed a lot as it has since stressed on the importance of clinical, theoretical and comprehensive evaluation.
Continuing Education
In an attempt to achieve continuing nursing education, Australia has adopted a model that combines both job training and nursing degree as it comes with huge opportunities for learning and gives nurses a platform to grow in nursing. At the moment, China lacks a well organised system for continued education, but recently the country has shifted its focus to continued education to equip the nurses professionally leading to attainment of specialist nurses.
References
Deng F.(2015) Chinese nursing research 2, 96-98.
Meng HG Zhu FT. Fan Y. (2015) Nursing education mode of the status quo at home and abroad. Edu Teach Forum.
Wei J. (2006) General Situation of Development of nursing education at home and abroad. Chin Nurs Res.
