citation : Nugraha, S., Tanaka, M., & Efendi, F. (2008). A Comparative Study of Nursing Educational System in Indonesia and Japan. Jurnal Ners, 3(2), 1-11.
Based on the effective implementation of Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Indonesia and Japan the mobility of caregivers from Indonesia to Japan has started since 2008. From Indonesian perspective, this is the first time for the country to send out nurses to work as caregivers under a bilateral agreement. However, the notion of ‘caregiver’ is often associated with domestic work without professional training which invites debates on the issue of nurse deskilling. The latest data from the National Board for the Placement and Protection (BNP2TKI) in 2014 showed that 167 Indonesian nurses worked as qualified caregivers in Japan. In addition, 295 caregivers have returned home due to some circumstances. Despite the original intention of the EPA that foreign caregivers are expected to pass the examination in order to continue working in Japan, the high proportion of Indonesian caregivers returning to Indonesia challenges the underlying assumption and the sustainability of the EPA.
Discussion:
In term of educational path, there is no specific difference between Indonesian and Japanese nursing educational systems, as shown on Table 3. The basic difference is on the method of qualification for the nurses. Japanese nurses should undertake national board examination to be a qualified nurse, whereas there is no national board examination for Indonesian nurses. In addition, current health condition of the countries remains the majority of the curriculums. Indonesian nursing education is focusing on communicable disease and surgery nursing, whereas Japanese is focusing on gerontology and chronic disease nursing. To be qualified as a nurse in Japan, Indonesian nurse also have to pass Japan nursing national board examination, which is held once a year at the end of February. Upon arrival nurses and caregivers will be taught Japanese language and introduced Japanese nursing systems for six months. For the first period of the arrival in the middle of August, the nurse will have 3 chances of examination, and will finish in the middle of February. The probability of Indonesian nurses to pass the first chance of examinations would be questionable, since there is no special preparation on Japanese language and Japanese nursing systems before coming to Japan. Japanese people are very respect on psychological condition of the patients, and Japanese nurse thought to always pay special attention on their psychological condition. Therefore, intensive learning on Japanese language, culture and Japanese nursing systems in the working field would be an important point to help Indonesian nurses to pass the nursing examination and be accepted to work as a real nurse. Consequently, a regulation from Japanese government is needed for the hospitals which recruit foreign nurses to reach this purpose. People believe it is unreasonable to insist that the Indonesian nurses take exactly same examination that Japanese nurses do, and such a strict requirement could cause a lot of valuable workers to be simply thrown away (www.japanprobe.com). However, based on the long term experiences on sending the nurses abroad, most of Indonesian nurses have been acknowledged by the receiving countries as having good personalities, such as kind, sympathetic attitudes for patients, and are likely to have a good relationship with the patients, and this in turn supports their job effectively. These conditions were believed those Indonesian nurses are able to survive against the language and difference nursing system.
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