The Journal of Middle East and North Africa Sciences 2017; 3(11) http://www.jomenas.org 12 Nursing Education Leaders Experiences of Emirati Nursing Student Recruitment and Retention Briliya Devadas Fatima College of Health Sciences, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) briliya.devadas@fchs.ac.ae ABSTRACT Background: Nursing started in the United Arab Emirates with the arrival of expatriate nurses in the latter part of the nineteen century, but fifty years on though, nursing education in the country is still in its infancy, and currently only 3% of the local population are taking up the profession as a career choice in the country. Objective: The purpose of this paper is to explore the experience of nursing education leaders in dealing with this issue. Design: Unstructured interviews were conducted with select nursing leaders in the country to explore their experiences. Findings: Nursing leaders from different spheres of the profession had different experiences and responsibilities, and tackled the problem from different perspectives. Conclusion: The paper has several implications for nursing education and policy in the United Arab Emirates and the region. To cite this article [Devadas, B. (2017). Nursing Education Leaders Experiences of Emirati Nursing Student Recruitment and Retention. The Journal of Middle East and North Africa Sciences, 3(11), 12-24]. (P-ISSN 2412- 9763) - (e-ISSN 2412-8937). www.jomenas.org. 3 Keywords: Emirati; Nursing Education; Qualitative Research; Nursing Education Leaders. 1. Introduction: There are many challenges to nursing education, with the first and foremost being a shortage in nurses’ recruitment and retention in the profession. Leaders in nursing education striving to be change agents and contribute to the field need to be aware of the multifaceted issues involved. Their leadership is enacted within multifaceted dimensions of students in the classroom, with faculty members at meetings, on a local level within the organization, at a national level influenced by government agencies, and on an international platform (Horton- Deutsch et al. 2011). Cooper (2008) argues that the nursing shortage today requires leaders in nursing who will find innovative strategies to meet nursing education needs without compromising quality and patient safety. 2. Background: The nursing curriculum today has undergone tremendous changes from its humble beginnings in 1850 when the first nursing schools opened in the UK. Giddens and Brady (2007) report on this evolution of nursing curriculum and cite contributing factors like the shift from an industrial age to an information age and global changes in the healthcare delivery system. By the late 1940s, Tyler’s curriculum model, which focused on prescribed curriculum development criteria such as measurable objectives (National League for Nursing, 2003), was the framework that nurses used in their educational process. This framework, which at first was thought to be effective in lending structure and shape to the body of knowledge that was nursing, later proved to be a means for content saturation (Giddens & Brady, 2007). By 2001, the National League for Nursing (NLN) recognized the limitations and in their position statement (National League for Nursing, 2001, p.2) “challenged faculty to think in new ways, integrate research findings into their approaches to teaching and evaluating students, and consider different curriculum models” like cultural congruent models. Responding to these and other factors such as globalization, the global nursing shortage, technological revolution and the changing healthcare environment, nurse educators have begun to develop innovative, interactive and student centred strategies to deal with the new generation (Candela et al., 2006; Diekelmann et al, 2005; Ironside, 2003; Stanley, 2010).