Abstract:

The study aims at establishing challenges experienced by e-learning student nurses at Ndola school of nursing. e-Learning is a platform for learning which uses various electronic appliances which includes computers, internet facilities and other appliances for collection, processing, storage and dissemination of information world over. e-Learning is defined as technology supported learning and the delivery of content via all electric media (1). e-learning is the teaching and learning where students are not required to be physically present at a specific location during the term as the process of providing instructions when students and instructors are separated by physical distance, time or both, e mail and web are used for initiation of life-long learning in educational process lead to new forms of education and education programs (2).

In Kenya Amref Health Africa trained over 7,000 Kenyan nurses through e-learning in 2011, while in Tanzania Amref Health Africa intend to train 1000 nurses by the end of the program (3). In Zambia e-learning to train nurses was launched on 13^th February 2014, in partnership with Child fund international to help accelerate their training in line with the 21^st century technology. The first intake of trainee nurses’ e learners was enrolled in July 2014 in four schools namely; Ndola, Kitwe, Mufulira, and Livingstone and the programme is conducted in nursing colleges managed by ministry of health only. To ensure smooth implementation of this programme child fund in conjunction with general nursing council trained 16 principle tutors in curriculum adaptation, 30 tutors in development of content materials and 20 tutors in review of e content before training commenced. Child fund international also donated 80 computers to supplement on existing equipment in these training institutions. The aim of this project is to train 6,000 nurses in the next five years in 16 ministries of health training schools, with each registered nursing school training not less than 50 students initially and increase eventually as they gain experience (4). A blended approach of e-learning has been is a mix of the traditional and online methodologies where some of the learning that is required to achieve a learning objective is undertaken in the traditional classroom environment but the use of eLearning technologies and methods is also applied to the learning that is undertaken. This method of training nurses has a lot of advantages compared to the traditional method.

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