Kwantlen University College, soon to become Kwantlen Polytechnic University, has been selected as the delivery site for a new provincial internationally educated nurse assessment service that will help ease the entry of internationally educated registered nurses into the B.C. workforce, Health Services Minister George Abbott announced last week.

"Internationally educated health professionals play a critical role in B.C.’s health-care system, and we are pleased to provide funding for an assessment service for internationally educated nurses at Kwantlen through a $1million investment to the Health Employers Association of BC," said Abbott. "Many nurses from outside Canada are recognizing that B.C. is a great place to live, work and raise a family, and the number of internationally educated nurses applying for licensing in B.C. is increasing each year. This partnership with Kwantlen will help us to ensure qualified nurses receive assessment and recognition of the competencies acquired through life, work and formal learning experiences."

In December 2007, the province announced this funding for the assessment service as part of its Internationally Educated Nurse Strategy. Funding will be distributed over two years to kickstart the new service and Kwantlen will begin performing competency-based assessments for internationally educated registered nurses in October 2008. Kwantlen will also begin the process of offering course work to optimize the successful integration of foreign-educated nurses into the workforce.

"We’re educating more nurses than ever before in B.C. with nearly double the number of nursing student spaces in public post-secondary institutions," said Advanced Education and Labour Market Development Minister Murray Coell. "This new assessment service at Kwantlen goes hand-in-hand with that expansion, opening more doors to dedicated nurses wherever they were educated."

Kwantlen was chosen as the site for the assessment service after a stringent application process that saw interested educational institutions submit written proposals outlining their ability to implement this service.

Evaluation criteria included the educational institution’s commitment to establishing a provincial approach to assessment, its ability to work with a variety of jurisdictional partners and stakeholders and experience in the actual delivery of education programs for internationally educated nurses.

"Kwantlen is pleased to have the opportunity to develop an assessment service for internationally educated nurses," said Kwantlen’s new president David W. Atkinson. "We look forward to building upon our established education programs for internationally educated nurses and providing nurses with services that are easily adapted to their specific needs in order to best prepare them for practice as registered nurses in B.C."

Currently, international nurses wishing to work in B.C. submit applications to CRNBC. Kwantlen’s assessment service is designed to help CRNBC determine a nurse’s ability to meet entry-level nursing competencies in B.C.

For more information on the Internationally Educated Nurses Assessment Service of British Columbia, please visit www.nursinginbc.ca