Nationwide faculty development: a model for a shift from diploma to baccalaureate education

Many countries are in the process of moving nursing education from 2-year or 3-year diploma programmes to institutions of higher education. This paper reports on a national project in Israel in which diploma school faculties were retooled for baccalaureate teaching. Among many issues associated with this shift are two addressed by this paper: what are the essential differences between diploma and baccalaureate education and how can faculty be developed so that the change is substantive and not the same type of education with a different label? The authors propose: (a) more radical changes must occur in the preparation of faculty for there to be substantive differences in the graduates; (b) the objectives curriculum model widely exported from the USA promotes training for technical levels of nursing and inhibits true education for professional practice; (c) there are six types of learning, not one, and the difference between technical and professional nursing education lies in the types of learning emphasized by faculty.