Top 15 Schools of Nursing in Nigeria That Can Make You an Outstanding Nurse

October 28, 2022

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image of students in one of the schools of nursing in Nigeria — Photo of Students in one of the schools of nursing in Nigeria

Are you an aspiring nursing student in Nigeria? Are you interested in knowing the best nursing schools in Nigeria? If you ‘answered’ in affirmative, this article is for you. Read it to the end.

To begin with

When choosing a nursing school as a nursing student in Nigeria or elsewhere, you must exercise utmost carefulness and sound judgment.

Here’s why:

Nursing is an essential and sensitive profession that requires no costly mistakes or lackluster attitudes.

As a nurse, you’ll work to support doctors in their quest to save lives and attend to sick people. In addition, you guide patients to take their prescriptions according to the doctor and check their temperature, blood pressure, and health indices.

Now, let me ask.

Would these sensitive roles allow you the luxury of trial and error? I don’t think so.

These roles are related to life and health, so you should refrain from toying with them from the beginning. You must have a solid background to do well in this noble profession.

Undoubtedly, it’s okay to have profound love in caring for people. After all, you equally need passion to be an outstanding nurse.

However, you should also know that nursing is not just about caring for people. You must learn a few more things to prepare for future nursing tasks, enjoy the profession and become the best nurse you can be.

And this brings us to the question of “Which school of nursing should I enroll into to have the proper training as a nurse”?

Before we provide you with the list of the best schools of nursing in Nigeria that will help you realize your dream of becoming a well-trained nurse, we must let you know a few more things about studying nursing in Nigeria.

Want to find out what those few things are? Keep reading, and you’ll find out.

Table of Contents

How to Become a Nurse in Nigeria

To become a nurse in Nigeria, you must undergo rigorous and complete educational and clinical training and pass the qualifying exams. In addition, you must register with the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria(NMCN) before practicing professionally in Nigeria.

You can achieve this in two significant ways:

(a) School of Basic Nursing

(b) University.

(a) School of Basic Nursing and Midwifery

The currently approved entry requirement is five (5) O’level credit passes in Mathematics, English Language, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology at not more than two (2) sittings from either the West African Examination Council (WAEC) or National Examination Council (NECO).

Suppose you’re an international student with a foreign examination board result(s). In that case, you need to submit an evaluation report or equivalent grading from the Federal Ministry of Education along with the result.

At the School of Nursing and midwifery, you will undergo basic hospital-based training that runs for three years. On completion, the SchoolSchool will award you a Certificate in General Nursing.

This program ensures that students spend half of their learning periods in the classroom, whereas other activities occur in clinics and hospitals.

In the same vein, the School of Basic Midwifery trains midwives for three years, after which they get their professional licenses to practice as midwives.

The acceptable Age range for admission into Basic Nursing and Basic Midwifery Training program is 18 – 35years.

(b) The University

You can also become a nurse in Nigeria by training as a nurse in a Nigerian university that has accreditation to offer nursing programs. Nursing programs in Nigerian universities take a minimum of five years and usually lead to the award of professional certificates and a bachelor’s degree.

In this program, you have more time to spend in the classroom as a student nurse and less time in the clinics.

One more thing.

You’ll need to attempt a professional examination which will lead to the award of a certificate in General nursing. Then, in your 5th year, you study midwifery and Public Health. Upon completion, you’ll register and write an exam qualifying you as a registered midwife (RM) and public health nurse (RPH), in addition to obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Nursing.

You’ll need to undergo a compulsory one-year internship program to ground you in clinical experience and help you hone your clinical skills. After this, you would receive your license to practice.

Most universities in Nigeria require candidates seeking to study nursing in the university to have good grades in their Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination(UTME) in addition to meeting the five O’level credit requirement in relevant subjects. You can also go through Direct Entry (DE), which is for candidates having advanced qualifications like Diplomas or degrees in another discipline but want to switch over to nursing.

Nursing Career Specialties in Schools of Nursing in Nigeria.

As a profession, nursing is extensive. It’s almost impossible for an individual to know all aspects of nursing and function effectively. For this reason, the nursing profession has various specialties that one can major in after undergoing general nursing training and qualifying as a registered nurse (RN). These specialties provide qualified nurses with rare career opportunities with attractive remunerations. They include:

Pediatric Nurse

This critical nursing specialization focuses on the healthcare needs of children from birth through adolescence. Depending on their level of training, pediatric nurses provide primary and preventive healthcare, conduct physical exams, manage chronic and acute illnesses, perform diagnostic tests, provide treatment plans and help children in various settings. They also provide healthcare education to patients and families.

Geriatric Nurse

Geriatric nursing is the aspect of nursing that cares for aging patients or those suffering from conditions typically affecting the elderly. A geriatric nurse must be vast and have focused training to effectively understand the needs of older adults and do well to provide for them.

As a geriatric nurse, you work closely with primary care physicians, social workers, families, and other caretakers to manage the healthcare issues of their patients and also help to educate them about their conditions and treatment options.

Acute Care Nurse

Acute care nurses treat patients needing immediate assistance for severe or life-threatening issues, such as heart attacks or sudden complications from chronic illnesses like diabetes. This highly versatile nursing specialization offers 15 certifications ranging from neonatal and pediatric acute care to adult cardiac and critical gerontology care.

Oncology Nurse

Oncology nurses care for patients receiving treatment for various stages of cancer. They typically specialize in subfields such as pediatric cancer, geriatric cancer, breast cancer, or hematology. These nurses administer chemotherapy, identify symptoms, and monitor progress. Oncology nurses also play a crucial role in creating a comfortable and supportive environment for cancer patients.

Neonatal Nurse

As a neonatal nurse, you’ll work in intensive care units caring for infants at risk for complications and needing specialized care. These include premature newborns and those born with cardiac or other congenital disabilities, genetic conditions, or drug dependency. Neonatal nurses care for these infants until they leave the hospital but will sometimes provide care beyond the newborn phase.

Nurse Midwife

A Nurse midwife cares for pregnant mothers from labor through delivery and provides postpartum assistance. While primarily focused on pregnancy care, these nurses can equally offer general services for women, including gynecological reproductive and preventive healthcare.

Clinical Nurse

To qualify as a clinical nurse, you need a master’s of nursing degree in a specialized area of nursing practice. As a clinical nurse, you can focus on any of these specialties, such as pediatrics, geriatrics, critical or emergency care, specific disease care (such as diabetes or cardiovascular illness), rehabilitation, mental health, or pain management and wound care.

Infection Control/Prevention Nurse

As an Infection control and prevention nurse, your duty is to identify, surveil, and manage infections, diseases, and viruses. The services of these nurses were handy during the COVID-19 pandemic, as healthcare systems need specialized workers to focus on patients, reporting and widespread infection prevention. They work at hospitals, clinics, and community health centers.

School Nurse

A school nurse, among many other duties, treats and gives first aid to ill or injured students. In addition, school nurses provide acute care, collect health data, administer health screenings, and help students with chronic diseases. School nurses work at all levels of the education system.

Dialysis Nurse

Dialysis refers to the medical process of cleaning the blood of patients who suffer from kidney-related diseases. These disorders inhibit their kidneys from filtering out unwanted waste and fluids from their blood. As a dialysis nurse, you operate the equipment that cleans a patient’s blood, assess patients’ vital signs before and after the dialysis procedure, and provide education about medications and aftercare.

Family Nurse Practitioner

A Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) works with patients from childhood to adulthood in clinical and family practice settings. . FNP examines, diagnoses, and treats patients throughout their lifespan from childhood to old age, with a particular focus on preventive care.

Public Health Nurse

A Public health nurse works with particular populations or communities, educating people on health and safety issues and assisting them with access to healthcare. Rather than providing individual patient care, they focus on prevention. They identify health concerns, prioritize community safety issues, prepare and implement safety plans, and serve as healthcare advocates.

Nurse Advocate

As a nurse advocate, your duty is to provide assessment, education, and representation for patients, coordinating between patients and their doctors. You also review patient concerns and consult with doctors to ensure quality and cost-effective healthcare. Your roles include educating patients about their conditions, treatments, and available healthcare procedures and representing patients by communicating their preferences and mediating conflicts with their doctors.

Nurse Researcher

These highly specialized nursing professionals conduct scientific studies, analyze data, and report their findings about illnesses and improving healthcare. They work in a variety of settings, including hospitals and research laboratories. While nurse researchers do not provide direct nursing care to patients, they perform essential healthcare functions, focusing on topics that impact the field of nursing and save peoples’ lives.

Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse

A psychiatric nurse assesses, diagnose, and treats patients with mental disorders. So, as a psychiatric mental health nurse, you offer services to people with mood disorders, phobias, depression, or dementia, as well as those struggling with substance abuse issues or other addictions.

Not only that.

You help in crisis intervention, mental health assessment and evaluation, and patient assistance.

Trauma Nurse

As a trauma nurse, who can work in emergency rooms, critical care units, or as part of emergency medical response teams, your duty includes helping patients in acute, unstable, and life-threatening conditions.

Travel Nurse

As a travel nurse, you move from one healthcare facility to another across the country and sometimes abroad to fill staffing needs for varying periods. A travel nurse may specialize in a particular practice area or perform general RN duties such as recording patient histories, assessing symptoms, making diagnoses, and administering treatment and medicine. Whether self-employed or placed through an agency, travel nurses take contracts anywhere from one month to two years.

Informatics Nurse

Organizations, including hospitals, nursing homes, insurance agencies, and public health agencies, engage the services of informatics nurses to manage healthcare data and communications. These nurses, trained in computer science, information technology, and nursing, take care of data integration among all healthcare providers to help these organizations increase efficiency and improve patient care.

Nurse Anesthetist

As a Nurse anesthetist, you work with patients of all ages in scheduled surgical or emergency procedures. Before surgery, they record patient histories and provide information about the types of anesthesia used in the procedure.

Nurse Educator

Nurse educators are registered nurses who have completed advanced graduate training, which qualifies them to teach nursing students in academic institutions or hospitals. In addition to teaching student nurses, they also provide continuing education and refresher courses for nursing professionals. They also do the following: advising students, creating and evaluating nursing curricula, conducting research, and writing grants.

Can a Man Be a Nurse?

There’s this funny misconception about nursing being exclusively for women. Nothing can be more amusing and farther from the truth than this.

Both men and women can be nurses, provided they meet the minimum requirements for admission into nursing schools.

Nursing is not gender-biased!

So, like their female counterpart, a male can seek admission into any nursing school or university offering Nursing/Nursing Science. After completing his course, he becomes a nurse, just like those female nurses you see around.

15 Top Schools of Nursing in Nigeria

Now that you have some basic information about studying nursing in Nigeria, it’s time for us to go into the crux of this post. Let’s dive right in.

1. School of Nursing, Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital Abakaliki (SONAEFUTHA)

Basic School of Nursing, Federal Hospital Abakaliki, is one of the top nursing schools in Nigeria, with the core mandate of producing nurses capable of working locally, nationally, and internationally in a rapidly changing global environment. The SchoolSchool prepares students to become practical nurses capable of rendering quality health care to society. The school is at Nsugbe, Abakaliki. You can also reach the SchoolSchool at this phone number: 0703 225 8022

2. Mater School of Nursing Misericordiae Hospital

Mater School of Nursing and Midwifery is owned and managed by the Catholic Diocese of Abakaliki in Ebonyi State. The SchoolSchool is located at Afikpo and can be reached on this number +234 7037054713.

3. School Of Nursing Joint Hospital- Mbano

This SchoolSchool of nursing that’s currently known as the College of Nursing Science. It was established to Present nursing practice in its classical tradition and appeal, capable of rendering quality care to individuals and immediate communities of diverse kinds and producing proficient and competent nurses and midwives willing to serve people in their natural environment. It’s located at Umuduru, Mbano, Imo State.

4. ECWA school of nursing, Egbe.

ECWA School of Nursing is a missionary nursing school with the mandate of raising world-class competent, God-fearing nurses who project Christ’s nature in health care delivery to produce a healthy society. The School’sSchool’s address is 1 ECWA Hospital Road,

Egbe, Kogi State. You can also reach them on phone number: +234-8163339481.

5. School of Nursing, Osogbo.

This SchoolSchool of nursing is among the top schools of nursing in Nigeria that offer quality nursing education to its students. It’s the institution of the Osun State government and is located at Asubiaro, Osogbo. Their contact number is 0803 536 8642

6. Ondo State Schools of Nursing and Midwifery

The SchoolSchool has its location at 102 Igbatoro Road, 340106, Akure. You can also reach them through this phone number: 0806 308 2117. It has a vision of becoming a centre of excellence for professional nursing development in education, practice and research.

7. Oyo State College of Nursing & Midwifery.

Oyo State College of Nursing and Midwifery ensures high-quality professional education through various innovative programmes, keeping an ‘A’ grade in nursing education in the classroom and clinical experiences. It’s located at Fanmilk Road, Eleyele 200284, Ibadan. You can reach the SchoolSchool on this number: 0802 898 7991.

8. School of Nursing and Midwifery-Usman Danfodio University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto.

The SchoolSchool is located at Garba Nadama Rd, Mabera 840103, Sokoto. It’s one of the top schools of nursing in Nigeria.

9. Iyienu School of Nursing, Ogidi.

According to the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria standard, this School trains students who will become qualified nurses. The School has qualified/experienced Tutors with M.Sc., B.Sc. and HND in Nursing. Its products are found worldwide, and they project a good image of the school/hospital wherever they find themselves. School of Nursing Iyi-Enu is 85 years old. The contact number is 0806 959 0444, and the address is Limca Rd, Ikenga Ogidi , Ogidi.

10. College of Nursing and Midwifery, Sokoto.

The School aims to produce competent and employable graduates anywhere, provide avenues for continuing education in Nursing and Midwifery and provide courses of study, training and research in general Nursing and Midwifery, leading to the award of Registered Nursing/Midwifery Certificate. The School is located at Gagi road, Sokoto. Their contact number is 0814 649 8278.

11. University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan school of nursing

The University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan school of nursing is one of Nigeria’s best nursing schools. It aims to train skilful professional Nurses of international standards. These nurses should be able to fulfil the fundamental health needs of Nigeria by giving quality nursing care and contributing to an efficient workforce to cope with emerging health challenges worldwide. The School is at Queen Elizabeth Rd, Oritamefa, Ibadan.

12. SCHOOL OF NURSING, UNIVERSITY OF BENIN TEACHING HOSPITAL, BENIN CITY.

School of Nursing, University of Benin Teaching Hospital, is among the top schools of nursing in Nigeria. The hospital is located in Ugbowo, Benin City and got established on May 12, 1973. You can reach the School through this number or click the link above to visit the School’s official website for more information.

13. School of Nursing, UNTH, Enugu.

School of Nursing, UNTH, Enugu, is another top nursing school in Nigeria. It aims to produce future nursing leaders who will impact local and global health and lead healthcare transformation to improve lives through education, research, evidence-based practice and community engagement. The School has its location in Enugu Metropolis, Enugu State. You can click the above link for more information about the School.

14. School of Nursing-ABUTH, Zaria.

School of Nursing-ABUTH, Zaria, as one of the most rated schools of nursing in Nigeria, offers highly specialized, excellent, prompt, affordable and accessible healthcare services that would meet the healthcare needs of our clients in an environment that promotes hope and dignity irrespective of status. It also aims to develop highly competent healthcare personnel in an environment that stimulates excellent and relevant research. If you’re interested in studying nursing in the School, please click on the above link for more information.

15. School of Nursing, LUTH, Idi-Araba

School of Nursing, Lagos University Teaching Hospital seeks to exceed expectations in grooming young nursing students, bridge the widening gap between theory and practice, and contribute to the growth and stability of the Health care system in Nigeria.

Conclusion

I believe you gained one or two things from reading this article. If you want to study nursing in Nigeria, kindly go through the article once again, clicking the link against each school, to know if they have started calling for admission and also to see which will actually help you achieve your dream of becoming a nurse. If you also know anyone who wishes to study nursing in NIgeria, also refer them to this article.

Thank you for your time, patience and effort towards reading this post. Feel free to leave a comment for your question, criticism or suggestion of any kind.

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