At UOW Malaysia KDU, over 80% of all the nursing students are fully sponsored. Their education - plus three years' accommodation - is fully paid for. And they even get a monthly allowance of between RM500 and RM650 from the hospitals that sponsor them.
She shares valuable insights into the all-important recruitment interviews. The single-most important trait desired in a nursing student, she said, is empathy for those in need of care. "We might not expect them to know how to help a sudden cardiac arrest victim correctly, but we can judge their desire to help from that," said Magesvari.
"We also want to know if someone in their families had inspired them to consider being a nurse. Many times, applicants want to be nurses because they have a family member who is a nurse and saw how caring that person is," she added.Since the sponsors pay RM55,215 for the successful applicants' education and accommodation, it would be natural to want applicants who want nothing more than to be nurses.
Lecturers train the students how to do certain procedures according to the syllabus, for example, how to insert a feeding tube through a patient's nose.