University News Last updated 22 November 2011
A university academic has said she is concerned that prospective students could be missing out on a career in nursing because of confusion about university tuition fees.
The Department of Health covers the cost of university tuition fees for a range of programmes that prepare students for a career as a qualified health care professional. However, staff at Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Health say they have taken a number of enquiries about nursing courses from people who incorrectly thought they would be eligible to pay tuition fees for their course. Louise Toner who is Associate Dean with the Faculty of Health has said the NHS could be missing out on trained healthcare professionals, particularly nurses, because prospective students don’t realise that they will not have to pay university tuition fees.
She said: “We want anyone who is considering a career in healthcare to realise that there is no change to Department of Health-funded courses that start in 2012; they continue to be funded despite the change in fees for other university courses. The Faculty has a BSc (Hons) Nursing intake in April and October for four fields of study and we are concerned that as a result of the apparent confusion regarding fees individuals may not apply for the forthcoming April and subsequent October intake.”
Variety of programmes
Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Health offers a variety of programmes to prepare qualified health care professionals these include a BSc (Hons) Nursing, Adult, Child, Learning Disability and Mental Health Nursing – the fees for which are all funded by the Department of Health.
Louise added: “Obviously a university programme which does not charges its students tuition fees will appear attractive to many people, however I’d like to stress that our courses are as demanding as they are rewarding. To study for a nursing degree we currently require a minimum of 240 UCAS tariff points plus GCSEs at Grade C or above in five subjects, which must include English Language, Mathematics and in some cases a specified science. In addition, applicants are required to attend a robust selection process which includes numeracy, literacy and IT testing together with an interview conducted by academic and practice based staff.”
Anyone who would like to find out more about courses at the Faculty should visit www.bcu.ac.uk/health