B.NSc Nursing

Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health care providers by their approach to patient care, training, and scope of practice.

The Bachelor of Nursing Science Degree of the National Open University is a response to the need to enhance access to university education for many nurses in clinical practice, who may not be able to leave their job for higher-level education despite the professional demand for such. The programme focuses on upgrading the knowledge and competencies of these practitioners to function as professional nurses with a solid science base that is highly competitive, compared to others anywhere in the world.

The Philosophy of the B.NSc Nursing degree Programme
The Objects of the NOUN serves as a guide to the philosophy of the operations of the BNSc degree programme. The University believes in/that:

• The right to education by all, irrespective of location as such relates to expanding access to education without compromising quality and standard of the BNSC degree graduates through high standards of scholarship, competence and personal character should have a high capacity to translate expanded and deeper knowledge, improved skills and higher appreciation of human values in an emerging highly technological world to quality nursing care and service delivery that advance public health and quality health care delivery systems.
• Preparation for professional nursing should consist of liberal and professional education utilising multiple resources (human and material) across the nation to support quality learning without compromising standards.
  Nursing is a helping process of interactions, working with people as individuals, families and communities to attain, maintain, restore and sustain an optimal level of healthy living.
• The nurse is an important practitioner in the interactional transaction who function to help people at all levels (the individual, family and community) adopt positive or modify their lifestyles and pattern of daily living to meet their requirements for healthy living and effective use of health care services. The nurse must be highly knowledgeable to be able to engage in the cognitive analytic-synthesis process and must be highly competent as to efficiently apply appropriate technical skills using up-to-date technology in helping clients and highly responsive to human feelings as he/she works in cooperation and collaboration with clients and other health and social science disciplines. The health team, in which the individual, the family and the community play significant roles, is the most effective approach to promotion, maintenance and restoration of health.
• Professional nursing practice in the century and thereafter depends on programs that can maximise knowledge from the arts, sciences, humanities and nursing for evidence-based professional practice as depicted by involvement in research and continued acquisition of new knowledge and promotion of self-development through self-directed learning by graduates.
• The roles and responsibilities of the nurse are changing and a professional nursing programme should build the capacity of learners in analysing the change process, in deciding on change which is desirable or undesirable, possible, probable, or impossible, and in accepting responsibilities to take action for what would be needed to support change.
• Learners should be assisted in using relevant and proven learning methods that support problem-solving based on rational knowledge moderated by the emerging trends in technology.

Potential Career Paths include: Acute Care Nurse, Community Nursing Professional, Critical Care Nurse, Dermatology Nurse Practitioner, Emergency Room Nurse, Epidemics Research Nurse, Health Administration Nurse, Hospice Nurse, Legal Consultancy Nurse, Nurse Anesthetist, Nursing Informatics Specialist, Nurse Midwife, Occupational Health Nurse, Outpatient Care Nurse, Pediatric Nurse, etc.