Fnopi: “Only one application per place at the Nursing entrance test”

Approximately 21 thousand students are taking the admission tests for the Nursing degree courses today for 20,435 available registrations. Even if the places available are increasing (377 more than in 2023-2024), the applications for admission for 2024-2025 are down by 2,377 units compared to last year (-10%) with the lowest requests in the Center-North and the highest in the South. Thus in a note the National Federation of Nursing Professions Orders (Fnopi) highlights the need for a comprehensive review of the system to increase the attractiveness of the profession, with specializations, career prospects and recognition from an economic and organizational point of view.

To this end, the Federation calls for action on multiple levels, both from a training and professional point of view. With respect to training, the proposal is to shorten the action times, starting today to analyze the data of the registration applications and to study the needs and actions to be implemented for the next academic years. It is also essential to extend the time frame dedicated to registrations for the tests, publishing the notices more in advance (this year there was only one month available for aspiring nurses) to allow students and families to identify in the Nursing course an opportunity to reflect on and choose carefully. It is also essential for Fnopi to make the flexibility of the rankings, introduced this academic year, concrete and effective, because those who are eligible have further possibility of access to the degree course in locations other than those in which they took the tests. On this aspect, desired by the Ministry of University and Research and supported by the Federation of Orders, Fnopi will start a constant monitoring activity. Finally, nurses ask for a complete review of the system that, starting from the specializations of the master’s training courses (in the process of being activated), can offer career prospects and allow the release of skills that are often already exercised today, but are not adequately recognized from an economic and organizational point of view.

The drop in applications – which is recorded for all care professions – is confirmed as marked in the regions of Central and Northern Italy, but from this year it is also starting to affect some regions of the South. The data becomes particularly relevant also in the phase following the selections, when, finding free places in the North, many southern students are forced to give up because the expenses for ‘out of town’ students and for families become impossible to sustain. It remains important, however, that, in the face of an ever-widening university choice and the reduction of young people – in 2024 there were 10 thousand fewer high school graduates – over 21 thousand students have focused on the admission test to Nursing. They, as well as all citizens who risk no longer having adequate assistance in the future – the note concludes – must be given concrete answers.