Transforming nursing education: benefit or peril for the profession

Abstract

The primary role of nursing education in any country is to produce a critical mass of nursing workforce. Researchers on health workforce agree that transformation of nursing education is an important strategy for improving health workforce supply (Blaauw, Ditlopo & Rispel, 2014). In 2013, the significance of the workforce for the functioning of the health systems and health outcomes was exemplified in a publication by the Global Health Workforce Alliance and the World Health Organisation entitled “A Universal truth: No health without a workforce”. Nursing education in South Africa is not immune to the transformation agenda of the new democratic dispensation. While this on-going process is viewed by some nurse professionals, educators and scholars as beneficial to the profession, others do not share the same views. In a policy analysis study on the development of the new Nursing Qualifications Framework, Blaauw, Ditlopo and Rispel (2014) stated that “the policy capacity of key institutions requires urgent strengthening if the important nursing education reforms are to be realised”. In 2014, Rispel and Bruce when looking at revitalising nursing in South Africa questioned if the nursing profession was in peril. My paper joins this debate by focusing on the impact of the policies related to the new qualifications on the nursing profession. I believe that as one ponders on the current process of nursing education transformation, there is a concern that changing the qualifications will benefit or imperil the profession.