Fewer and fewer young people want to go into nursing. In Brabant, an average of 18 percent fewer students have registered for the four HBO nursing courses for next year. In Tilburg in particular, the number of registrations has fallen sharply. 41 percent fewer students will start there in September. The decline comes after two years of increase, largely caused by the corona pandemic.
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In total, nearly 1,400 students from Brabant will start their higher professional education degree in nursing in September. Of those 1,400, 81 start in Tilburg. That was already a small education, but with 81 first-years there is little left.
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“Now, people are mainly talking about high absenteeism and work pressure.”
Karen Cox, director of Fontys University of Applied Sciences, is in the dark as to why the number of first-year students has decreased so much in Tilburg. “In the first two corona years, you were important if you worked in healthcare. We matter, you often heard. But now people are mainly talking about high absenteeism and work pressure.” Cox also suspects that the aging of the population has something to do with it. In Eindhoven the population may be a bit younger, so that the decrease remained at 14 percent.
Avans, with nursing courses in Den Bosch and Breda, is doing slightly better than Fontys, but there too there are around ten percent fewer students starting the first year. According to a spokesperson for Avans, it is not only due to the increase in the corona years. The abolition of the numerus fixus (a maximum number of students admitted) for nursing also caused an increase two years ago. The number of students is now back to the old level before corona.
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“Perhaps students will wait for the basic grant to be reintroduced.”
Cox: “You feel a bit powerless over the decline. Perhaps HAVO students are not sure that they can handle a college education after they have taken final exams during the corona time. Or they wait until the basic grant is reintroduced and studying becomes cheaper.”
It is also becoming increasingly difficult for schools to arrange internships for their nursing students. Due to a shortage of staff in hospitals, there is less time for supervision. Both Fontys and Avans just made it, everyone has an internship next year. But that involves a lot of extra calling and searching.
“We are increasingly making the switch with hospitals and care organizations to start learning departments where we can work with several students at the same time,” says an Avans spokesperson. to get.”
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