Nursing scholarships for masters, doctoral students

The scholarships will be made for the project on “Community-oriented Nursing Education for Women and Child Health.” The areas addressed by the project will include nursing care to victims of gender-related violence and unplanned pregnancies, patients with HIV/AIDS and malnutrition, and reducing maternal and peri-natal mortality.

The joint project plans to offer nurses a combination of rural and urban learning opportunities, while improving the quality of health care for nearly 2500 disadvantaged women and children per month in Tshwane and rural Hammanskraal. It will provide practical training opportunities to 800 student nurses each year, and scholarships for 52 Masters- and 26 Doctoral degrees. The project will encourage career development for nurses at the participating hospitals as well as nurse educator positions at the two institutions and so help address brain drain by introducing a new cadre of young academic nurses to counter aging in the profession and early departure from nursing.

Applicants for the Master of Nursing scholarships must have a bachelor's degree in nursing science and an applicable professional qualification in the intended field of specialisation. In addition, they should have approval for admission or validation for admission from either the University of Limpopo (Medunsa campus) or Pretoria for a Masters programme by value of a dissertation. They should have a keen interest in women and child health, and plan to undertake research related to the specific focus areas of this project.

Those applying for the Doctorate of Nursing scholarships must have a Masters degree in nursing science or a related discipline and have approval for admission from either of the two institutions for PhD studies in nursing science. They should also have a keen interest in women and child health, and plan to conduct research to develop the theory base of nursing science related to the focus areas of this project.

The closing date for the applications is 18 December 2009.

For further information about the scholarships contact Prof Neltjie van Wyk (University of Pretoria) at or Prof Elsie van Aswegen at .

For more information, go to www.up.ac.za; www.ul.ac.za, and the UNEDSA website, www.unedsa.co.za.