The Development of the Nursing Education and Science: The Case of Slovenia

On a European Union scale, the field of nursing education is governed by Directive 2013/55/E of the European Parliament and Council. International associations also focus on the field of nursing education. The strategic development of nursing in Slovenia 20122020 gives guidelines for vocational education in nursing on both secondary and tertiary levels. In Slovenia, we have nursing education on two levels, secondary and tertiary. In the field of nursing education, there is no clear development perspective for education on the two levels or on the scope of education on a secondary level. In Slovenia, we also do not have a tradition of education on a Master's and of Doctorate level in nursing. In addition, there is no developed national plan to increase employment of tertiary education staff in nursing in respect to the demographic trends and decreasing the number of personnel with secondary education in nursing, despite the fact that the strategic development of nursing in Slovenia 20122020 is directed towards this change. This slows down the development of nursing as a scientific discipline, which gives developed EU countries an important contribution to efficient and quality medical treatment and health care system as well as healthy society. An organised education system is this basis of every profession and is the basis for the development of the vocation as well as scientific discipline. In this paper we present the project »Nursing as a scientific discipline in Slovenia: An internationally comparable secondary and tertiary education system in nursing care as the foundation of research and scientific contribution to the sustainable development of society«, performed with the financial support from the state budget by the Slovenian Research Agency and the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport. The purpose of the project is to establish an internationally comparable secondary and tertiary nursing education system which allows for the development of the profession and science, as well as setting the framework for the establishment of interdisciplinary research connected with nursing, which can have a significant influence on sustainability of social development.