Over the past two weeks, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Nigeria Health Workforce Management (HWM) Activity has supported the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) with the roll-out of revised nursing and midwifery curricula. The NMCN organized zonal workshops in the southeast and northwest zones of Nigeria to disseminate the newly revised curricula and orientate instructors at pre-service health training institutions (PSHTIs) across the country.

Earlier this year, the HWM Activity supported the NMCN to review and revise the curricula to improve teaching and learning at PSHTIs. The series of zonal workshops, including one conducted in the northcentral zone and those planned for the northeast and southwest zones, follow the ratification and approval of the curricula by the NMCN Governing Board in June 2022.

More than 90 instructors convened at each of the southeast and northwest zonal workshops from the states in the zones. At both workshops, presentations were made on the curricula’s new content areas including nursing informatics, quality improvement and patient safety, nursing ethics, governance, and jurisprudence. The participants also had the opportunity to provide feedback to the NMCN on the newly revised curricula.

After the zonal workshops are completed, the next step is for PSHTIs to adapt the curricula, a process that the HWM Activity will facilitate to ensure standardization and the application of best practices. The HWM Activity will support PSHTIs in Bauchi, Ebonyi, Kebbi, Sokoto, and the Federal Capital Territory to adapt the curricula to their context as well as create resource hubs and instructor guides.

The HWM Activity will continue to work with the NMCN for the successful conduct of the dissemination and orientation workshops in the northeast and southwest zones over the coming weeks. With the rollout of this curricula, more than 290 PSHTIs across Nigeria will have access to current trends in nursing and midwifery, which will improve the quality of training and education of nurses and midwives.