Right behind you on that one playdoh! I am a student nurse (names a bit of a give away, no?) about to finish my uni course. Do I think that the uni course teaches me what I need to know to go into the big wide scary world of the RGN? No. Its provided me with basics, yes, but I know my real training will come after I qualify and start working as an RGN, alongside people that never went to uni, but by god, do they know their stuff. A prime example is that of my sister in law who is a modern matron, and who qualified over 20 years ago. Her Trust is now saying that she does not have the necessary qualification and are putting her through a part time uni course! I firmly believe that you get some people that are very academic but a bit duff with patients, and you get others that are brilliant with patients and duff academically, or you may be lucky and be a combination of the 2. Does being a bit rubbish academically make you a bad nurse? No. Does being brilliant academically make you a good nurse? No. You need both skills to do this, and alot more besides. The university route, although basically sound, could be doing alot of people out of a job that they would be good at and really want to do, all because the government want us to be able to wave pieces of paper around. At the end of the day, is my patient going to care what percentage I got on an assignment?? NO, what they are going to be concerned about is whether I can provide them with good quality patient care and support and help them to get better, adjust to an illness or, in some cases, to have a good death.