Nursing Colleges in India

Nursing Colleges in India are also known as colleges for nursing, nurse college, nursing institutes in India, nursing schools in India and nurses training centres. Whatever the variations, these provide only nursing courses in India. There are 2,000 nursing diploma schools, 1,200 nursing degree schools and 281 M.Sc. nursing colleges (timesofindia 2011). This is a great leap from the year 1871 when the first school of nursing was started in Government General Hospital, Madras with 6 months Diploma Midwives program with four mid-wife students. Annually, the country produces around 60,000 nurses. A shortlist of best nursing colleges is provided on the right hand of the screen. Nurses who complete their nursing courses from Kerala are the most sought-after in the global labour market. There are also other associations which promote nursing education in direct and indirect manner, few amongst these are - Nursing Research Society of India and Trained Nurses' Association of India.

Nurse Education is on the increase but its workforce is largely being employed by the Private sector and foreign hospitals in Europe and U.S. As a consequence there is nurse brain drain leading to  shortage of nurses workforce. To counter this situation, concerned department has allowed married women allowed to join nursing courses (year 2010). To strengthen this effort, the concerned department has also increased the retirement age of the faculty in nursing colleges to 70 years and nursing institutes have been instructed to relax the qualification and experience of nursing teachers up to 2012. The eligibility criteria for nursing diploma and degree has been relaxed by 5%.