Kerala Nursing and Midwives Council’s decision to bar allotments to 400 nursing seats spread across 8 University Colleges of Nursing under the M.G. University for this year has left around 2,500 applicants in the lurch.
All these colleges were listed for admission under the LBS Centre that allots seats for nursing colleges on the basis of merit. However, the Nursing Council after its repeat inspection last month had declared these seats void. A nursing faculty member of the University said there were students who had applied only to this university.
There were more than 400 seats vacant in the private nursing colleges last year while this year these vacant seats are being filled with spot allotments. Saji V., president of the Private Nursing Colleges Management Association, told The Hindu that just about a hundred seats were to be filled and it was likely that students would join soon. “The situation is much better than last year,” he added.
While sources in the M.G. University said though there had been delay in taking decision on appointing senior faculty member, which has been found to be a major lacunae in most of the colleges, other norm violations pointed out by KNMC were not alarming.
Except for two colleges at Thevara and Angamaly that were not functioning out of their own building, other colleges had good facilities, said the source. A senior faculty admitted that the building at Thevara was in a bad shape.
The university is hopeful that the nursing council will favourably review their case in their meeting scheduled for Thursday after the Chief Minister sought more time for the university to enhance the infrastructure.
Nursing council Registrar R. Latha told The Hindu that the council had found overlapping faculty and clinical facilities in most colleges under M.G. University even last year. However, admission was permitted after the university authorities’ promised to meet the criteria. The promises are yet to be met, she said.
Prof. Latha said the change of name to University College of Nursing under the University College of Medical Education from the previous Institute of Nursing Education under the School of Medical Education had also not been notified to the Indian Nursing Council. Students passing out from these colleges will find it difficult to practice if it is not registered under INC. Prof. Latha also alleged that the colleges under M.G. University were charging more fees.
The university official said it was the government that fixed the fee for these self-financing courses and the university followed all procedures for admission.
