Human resource for health is a global concern, with a shortage of doctors, nurses and midwives to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Nurses form the bulk of the healthcare workforce and are found to service remote areas where doctors are not available. The World Health Assembly in recognition of the human resource crisis passed resolutions for strengthening nursing and midwifery services. Nationally, the Forum for University Nursing Deans in South Africa (FUNDISA) realized that it was impossible to respond to the human resource crisis before ensuring that there is a supply of adequately trained nurse educators to train nurses and midwives in the country. Of specific concern was the lack of mentoring of young nurse educators and the high number of nurse educators who are within nine years of retirement which will potentially leave colleges and universities with inexperienced young nurse educators. These challenges incited FUNDISA to conduct a survey in 2011, to determine the current status of nurse educator education and training in South Africa. Newly qualified nurse educators, heads of colleges and university nursing departments and heads of higher education institutions which offer nursing education programmes participated in 3 separate surveys. Senior nursing academics conducted the document review and evaluated nine sample curricula. The results revealed that nurse education programmes are offered at Diploma, Degree, and Master's level. Educators felt better equipped in certain educational activities than in others. Their orientation to an academic setting and performing new tasks was reported as inadequate. Their self-rating of their competency fell between "poorly prepared" and "adequately prepared" with the lowest rating on curriculum development and highest rating on being a role model. On average the heads of NEI rated the neophytes higher than they rate themselves, however they rate the neophytes lower on role modeling professional behaviour, participating in scholarly activities and participating in the activities of the NEI. Conference attendance, in-service training and formal mentorship were the most common support offered to neophytes. Review of existing curricular highlighted several gaps in programmes offered at diploma, degree and master's level. The study recommends standardization of nursing education curricular; increased practical exposure for nursing education students; increased capacity-building programmes and regular assessment of core competencies of nurse educators to ensure relevance and currency.

The move of nursing education to higher education is regarded as one of the most transformative achievements in nursing in South Africa. In South Africa, as in countries across the globe, nursing is faced with human resource challenges. Such challenges are not limited to nurse shortages but to a shortage of nurse educators which is anticipated to be further impacted by the high number of nurse educators who are close to retirement. The shortage of nurses in the country therefore necessitated an increase in the recruitment of potential nurses, and a concomitant increase in the number of nurse educators to prepare these nurses. A team elected by the Forum for University Nursing Deans in South Africa (FUNDISA) was tasked firstly to explore the relevance and quality of the preparation of nurse educators before attending to the up-scaling of production of nurse educators.The task team conducted a survey amongst newly-qualified educators, heads of Nursing Education Institutions (NEIs) employing newly-qualified educators, and heads of nursing schools in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) which prepare nurse educators. A workshop was also conducted at a FUNDISA business meeting to analyse current nursing education programmes within HEIs. Many gaps were identified across the nursing education programmes offered and recommendations for improvement were made by participants. The Task Team then met to develop guidelines for educators of health professionals based on the survey and workshop input.The guidelines developed by the task team include requirements for entry to the programme; the prescribed body of knowledge for health professional education including theoretical foundation of Health Professional Education, curriculum development, didactics, clinical teaching and learning, management of health professional education and the history and contemporary issues related to nursing education; practical requirements; level descriptors and a range competencies.