Interprovincial partnership in nursing education

Abstract

The Canadian Nurses Association endorsed the position that baccalaureate education is essential to practise nursing. Provincial adoption of this position began efforts to increase seats in baccalaureate programs as early as the late 1980s. These efforts have generated many different models of collaborative baccalaureate nursing programs in Canada. One model, the UNB-Humber Collaborative Nursing Program, began to offer nursing courses in the fall of 2001. As UNB already offered its basic baccalaureate program in four New Brunswick sites and Humber College had well-established nursing diploma and continuing education programs, a partnership approach to nursing education seemed beneficial to both institutions. This article describes, from the perspective of one faculty member in Ontario and one in New Brunswick, how the development and implementation of this collaborative program and its curriculum were guided by a similar philosophy. The authors describe how the curriculum values of primary health care, social justice and caring influenced their relationships in the program development process. They also discuss strategies the partnership has used for developing the curriculum collaboratively, ensuring similarity of courses across sites, addressing academic freedom and sharing and learning together.