BENGALURU: The Association of Malayali Students Studying in Karnataka (AMSSK) has alleged that various nursing colleges in the state have been conducting illegal correspondence courses over the years, compromising on the quality of education provided to aspiring nursing professionals.
AMSSK president M.K. Thomas said that nurses who graduate from Post Basic B.Sc. Nursing and M.Sc. Nursing courses via correspondence lack practical exposure.
“While it is mandated by the Indian Nursing Council (INC) that takers of the former course should attend 1,300 hours and 2,500 hours of practical clinical practices, for the latter, most of the colleges in the state fail to look into this clause, allowing the students to pursue the course via correspondence. These students are even allowed to take exams without attending classes and later they end up being certified nurses, posing a threat to their prospective patients later,” he said.
Citing an RTI reply by the INC on the credibility of such courses, Mr Thomas explained that the Council clarified that all such courses, excluding the P.B.Bsc. (N) programme run by Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), should be regular programmes. “We have approached the INC, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) and also the Karnataka State Nursing Council (KNC) on this matter multiple times, but their approach looks fishy. From the information I have collected over the years, the nursing mafia in the state earns nothing less than Rs 500 crore per year,” he alleged.
The official portal of KNC states that 170 colleges and 148 colleges in the state have been recognised by them to run P.B.Bsc and M.Sc. programmes, respectively. “At least 90% of these colleges lack basic infrastructure to run these programmes and we have found multiple instance of more than one institution working at the same address, publishing advertisements across
media platforms to attract students,” said Praveen K.T, secretary of AMSSK.
Addressing the media here on Monday, Mr Thomas said that a book, ‘A Handbook on Fraud and Fake Nurses from India’ that is in the pipeline, will expose such miscreants with photographs and other evidence.
The RTI activist has also approached the state human rights commission seeking protection after receiving numerous threat calls for his work since 2015.
