Response to national policy imperatives for nursing education: a Western Cape case study
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Date
2010
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Curationis
Abstract
Since South Africa became a democratic country in 1994, the higher education sector
has been faced with the challenge of transformation and restructuring. The Minister
of Education in the Education White Paper 3 stated that “the higher education system
must be transformed to redress the past inequities, to serve a new social order, to
meet pressing national needs and to respond to realities and opportunities” (Department
of Education, 1997:2). Higher education institutions were faced with the realities
of impending mergers and collaborations across programmes and between universities
and technikons. The Council on Higher Education (CHE) submitted a report to
the Minister of Education in February 2002 which proposed the establishment of new
institutional and organizational forms within regions (Department of Education, 2002:
7-8). The Minister announced changes in higher education based on his assessment
of the proposals submitted by the CHE which resulted in the reduction of the number
of higher education institutions from 3 6 to 21 (Department of Education, 2002:11-20).
There were specific implications for nursing education in the Western Cape. In December
2002 the Minister of Education, Kader Asmal announced that with effect from
2005, the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and a new institution, the Cape
Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) would be the only enrolling institutions
for undergraduate nursing education in the Western Cape. The Cape Higher Education
Consortium (CHEC) instead proposed the establishment of a common teaching
platform for nursing education in the region to meet the objectives of national and
provincial government and to make optimal use of the combined strengths of the
three universities and the technikon. This proposal was accepted by the minister and
the common teaching platform, a unique form of collaboration, was established in
2005.
Description
Keywords
Transformation, Restructuring, Nursing education, Common teaching platform, Undergraduate nursing, Higher education
Citation
Daniels, F. M. (2010). Response to national policy imperatives for nursing education: a Western Cape case study. Curationis, 33/1:41-48