2006 Volume 16 Issue 1 Pages 25-41
The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the origin of the Social Service System （SSS） and the evolution of its role in nursing basic education in Mexico, and to examine the significance and challenges of the SSS. We then extract implications for Japanese nursing education including international technical cooperation from the results of the examination.
Adopting a historical approach, we collected SSS-related documents, and interviewed health officials, instructors, clinical trainers and students.
There are two findings from the results of the examination. First, the role of the SSS on nursing basic education in Mexico has been operating amid the expectation of effective outcomes educationally and socially. In order to achieve the goals which were set by the Health Ministry, it was necessary for the Government to make the educational and social significance of the SSS more specific, and to improve the SSS to perform more systematically. Secondly, the SSS in Mexican nursing basic education is instructive for Japanese nursing education, because it shows a model of “social activity by students” and “education in clinical practice for students in the final stage of nursing basic education”. Finally, Japan’s future role in international technical cooperation must be based on a more thorough understanding of the SSS.
Our future challenges include describing and analyzing the evolution of the SSS on nursing basic education more concretely, and studying it for suggestions which could be applied to nursing education in Japan.
