Province and Beal University reach deal to see up to 100 New Brunswickers enter 3-year program
The provincial government is partnering with Beal University in Bangor, Maine, will see New Brunswickers trained to become registered nurses sooner and hired to alleviate a critical shortage at home.
Government will provide a $6000 incentive grants to New Brunswick students who enrolled for this program.
As a condition of grant, students must sign a return-of-service agreement to work as RN in New Brunswick for at least one year after completing education.Beal has opened up 100 nursing sets specifically for New Brunswick students starting in January, Post-secondary Education, Training, and labor Minister Trevor Holder announced on Monday.
- The private, for-profit university offers an accelerated 32 months of training instead of the four years currently required for the Bachelor of Nursing programs offered at the publicly funded university of New Brunswick and University of Moncton.
- The first year of the Beal program is completed online, while the next two years are a combination of online and in-person classes, and the clinical placements will be completed in New Brunswick’s health care system.
- The training – an 18-month nursing associate degree and 14-month Bachelor of Science of nursing costs more than $57000 U.S. or nearly $79000 Cdn.
- But Beal will offer tuition to New Brunswick students at only $42000Cdn- a discount of $ 36000Cdn, according to the chief operating officer Steve Villett.
- President Sheryl DeWalt also said, it can afford to do because it will save money with the clinical placements being in the New Brunswick
- The government also decided to provide $6000 incentive grants to students to help offset some of the costs associated with studying out of the country such as travel and living expenses, said Holder.
- The funding is being offered through “Labour market budget”, available to deal with labor market challenges.
- As a condition of the grant, students must sign a return-of-service agreement to work as RN in New Brunswick for at least one year after graduation, said Holder.
- Hence, result in significantly increase the educational capacity of the nursing students and further result in even more nurses entering in system in the next few years.
Health minister Bruce Fitch called the announcement “great news” for all New Brunswickers.
Margaret Melanson, interim president and CEO of Horizon, described partnerships, such as the one with Beal, as “as important step forward”.
Horizon has set a target of hiring 708 RN in 2022-2023 and has achieved 42 percent of that. as pf the last week, Melanson said.
Beal graduates will have to pass the NCLEX, which is used for nurses in both Canada and the U.S. Its nursing students have a pass rate of over 88 percent on the licensure exam, according to the president.