The double policy squeeze on nursing faculties: A critical policy analysis of higher education reform, nursing workforce expansion and nurse educator sustainability.
Abstract
ISSUE ADDRESSED Nursing workforce policy now asks education systems to expand domestic nurse supply while preparing graduates for older populations, community and primary care, digital health and more complex care pathways. At the same time, universities are expected to demonstrate curriculum innovation, student-centred teaching, quality assurance and institutional performance. The educator capacity required to carry this combined agenda is often assumed rather than planned. This critical policy analysis develops the concept of the double policy squeeze. Using China as an illustrative policy context and linking the analysis to international evidence, the paper argues that nurse educator sustainability is not simply a matter of individual resilience, workload management or local staffing. It is produced between health workforce planning and higher education governance, where responsibilities expand across sectors but ownership of educator capacity remains diffuse. The squeeze translates system-level ambitions into educator labour: curriculum renewal, placement coordination, simulation and digital teaching, student support, quality documentation, academic-practice partnership work and scholarship. When these tasks grow without parallel attention to staffing, workload models, career routes, protected scholarly time and retention, reforms intended to strengthen nursing may erode the educator workforce on which they depend. Policy should treat educator capacity as part of nursing workforce infrastructure. Workforce plans should include educator numbers, student-to-educator ratios, vacancies and turnover, clinical teaching capacity, simulation and digital resources, protected scholarly time, clinical-academic pathways and wellbeing indicators. Sustainable nursing workforce development requires sustained investment in the people and institutions that educate nurses.