Bernie Hayden, over at Maryland On My Mind, writes a nice post about jobs and education questioning whether our education system is preparing people for the jobs that are available. There are plenty of careers where there are far more jobs than qualified people to fill them. Two stand out here in Maryland - education and nursing. Let's start with nursing.
The Maryland Hospital Association reported that the vacancy rate in the nursing profession was thirteen percent last year. In a few years, Maryland's nursing shortage could reach 10,000 positions, just as those aging baby boomers begin to increase the demand for skilled nurses. We're producing fewer trained nurses than we need and can't seem to retain the ones we have. This is very costly because hospitals must bring in agency nurses from outside at a very high cost.
The demand is real. One of my daughters, I'm happy to say, recently graduated from nursing school in Maryland, passed her licensing exam and received her RN license. But even before she graduated, she had a job offer from a large Maryland hospital with a good signing bonus. Of course, it was a long time getting there.
In education, Maryland colleges and universities annually produce only about half the teachers that Maryland schools require. More than half of new teachers leave the profession within the first five years. This is very costly because of the substantial investment school districts make in recruiting and initial training.
So what can be done? The state recognizes the problems with the nursing shortage. My daughter received grants to cover her tuition on the condition that she work in a Maryland hospital one year for each year's tuition reimbursement she got. This seems like a reasonable deal for the state and for the hospitals and last year the Governor increased the amount of money the Higher Education Commission has to offer these grants.
Of course, to get tuition reimbursement, one has to get into a nursing school to begin with and there is a problem there. Nursing schools in Maryland are having a great deal of difficulty finding and retaining faculty. In February, the Governor announced an additional $3.4 million allocation to the Maryland School of Nursing to hire additional faculty and expand their program. Still, there will be far more qualified applicants than openings in Maryland's nursing schools.
In education, the problem seems to be more one of retention. If the 50% quit rate in the first five years could be substantially reduced, it would greatly reduce the need for expensive teacher recruitment programs. Surprisingly, according to the Maryland State Teachers' Association, the problem is not inadequate salaries, but inadequate support for new teachers during their first few years on the job. While it will require a greater investment to support teachers in their early years, this will have a significant payoff in greater retention down the road.
Now, as the 1917 poster above shows, the nursing shortage has been an issue for some time. And I remember the teacher shortage being an issue when I was young. But that's no excuse for ignoring these problems. As I've written many times before, a well-educated and trained workforce is one of the best things Maryland has going for it. We need to make sure that continues to be the case.
forget about dreaming and look here, a brilliant nursing career is looking forward for you......
Posted by: Nursing jobs | July 17, 2008 at 01:43 AM