Empowering students to articulate into second year of a nursing degree programme

As an institution the University of the West of Scotland (UWS), School of Health, Nursing & Midwifery has endeavoured to enhance the articulation of nursing students from Further Education (FE to Higher Education (HE) with involvement & support of local Health Boards. This area of work also recognises that the Nursing & Midwifery Council (2010) require HE Establishments to recognise students prior learning to facilitate career pathways. Students articulating into second year need to feel empowered to succeed. Long standing partnership working with local colleges and the work of the South West Articulation Hub saw the development of a module to facilitate some students joining the degree programmes in second year. The module provided by UWS over the summer time enables those selected from their HNC year to commence early engagement with UWS. The empowerment process then begins socially and academically to facilitate the transition from FE student to HE students equipped with the skills and practice hours to succeed in second year. This presentation will discuss the module and its role in empowering the students and highlight the evaluations of the first group of students through the module. The findings will suggest the empowerment process is vital to student’s engagement and success.