Lorraine Clarke Bishop from our Education, Policy and Standards Department led a round table discussion on Democracy in Nursing Education at the 5th VPL Biennale Conference.

The event took place in Kilkenny from 6 to 8 May with more than 350 delegates from 31 countries in attendance. The theme of this year’s conference was People, Validation and Power: Democracy in Action?

The conference, jointly hosted by Canada, Ireland and the USA, explored approaches to validation, the systems used and the potential they offer.

In response to workforce challenges within the nursing and midwifery professions, Lorraine led a discussion about Democracy in Nursing Education. As the regulator for registered nurses and midwives in Ireland, we propose to use Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) for widening access routes into the profession. We have developed a framework that will ensure consistency in the implementation of RPL across education bodies providing nursing programmes in Ireland.

In applying RPL, we aim to ensure that the integrity of programmes we approve achieve high academic standards. Working collaboratively with our nursing and midwifery colleagues, and academics we are motivated to increase capacity and diversity while facilitating mobility across the EU. 

We aim to make the process as seamless as possible for an applicant to demonstrate how they meet our standards and assist education bodies in determining a broad, consistent and efficient approach to recognition of prior learning.