After three years’ study, 44 nurses from the Level 6 Advanced Diploma of Nursing at Tonga’s nursing school graduated last week.
The academic level means this year’s graduates were the first to study and pass the Advanced Diploma Nursing Level 6 since 2005.
The nursing school’s Principal, Tilema Cama, said the programme was exceptional in the sense that the students had been given a chance to do academic research on their own.
She said it was “evidence based practice” and it could help improve how nurses performed in the field when they began working since last Monday.
She said the three-year Advanced Diploma programme was designed to fulfil the requirement by the Nursing Board of Tonga that all nurses in the kingdom must become registered nurses.
Cama said there was a plan to upgrade the diploma programme into an Australian degree level nursing programme in the near future.
She emphasised the important of quality and higher education for nurses as it could contribute to quality and better performance while they were working on their patients.
