Compliance of clinical instructors in nursing schools to Republic Act 7164

Abstract

Abstract: Republic Act (RA) 7164 known as The Philippine Nursing Act of 1991 includes provision requiring faculty members in schools of nursing to be masters degree holder. This is intended to raise the standard of teaching efficiency to bring about effective and wholesome learning. To determine the compliance of clinical instructors in nursing schools to RA 7164 this descriptive and correlational study was conducted. Specifically, it attempts to find out the relationship between the learner, teacher and environment to the compliance. All part-time and full-time clinical instructors who are not masters degree holder and employed for school year 1999-2000 in the five colleges of nursing in Davao City namely Brokenshire College, Davao Doctors College, Mindanao Medical Foundation College, San Pedro College and Tecarro College Foundation, Inc. were provided with a pretested questionnaire. After subjecting the data to simple percentage, mean, weighted mean and multiple logistic regression, it was found out that only twenty (20) out of the total (53) clinical instructors complied with the mandate. Among the different variables, only age and employer's support were related to compliance. Not statistically significant were factors such as civil status, monthly income, employment status, number of dependent household members, length of service, other roles taken aside from clinical instruction, level of awareness, degree of motivation, graduate school teachers' quality and quantity, phsical set-up and support of family. This study recommends that clinical instructors be encouraged to enroll early in life since younger age group may have lesser responsibilities and more time available to pursue graduate studies. Schools should support their clinical instructors financially as their present average monthly income cannot meet their needs for masteral study.