Our Duty of Care - Recommendation 12

MAXIMISING EDUCATION PATHWAYS

Contents: Progress Update - 2005 | What is the this project about? | Taskforce Role | Commencement of Work | Key Milestones & Deliverables | Contact

Progress Update - 2005

Preliminary investigation in this matter shows that while there are education pathways for nurses and for people to pursue a career in nursing, these pathways are not always streamlined and progression is not always unproblematic. A number of tensions and barriers have been identified and it is clear that the context for this work is rapidly changing.

In collaboration with the Council of Deans of Nursing and Midwifery – Australian and New Zealand, five work groups have been formed to focus on five (5) identified issues,

Representatives from the CDNM-ANZ are chairing the work groups assisted by the Taskforce secretariat. Key stakeholders were invited to participate on groups where the work was of

interest. Terms of reference and work activities have been agreed, work plans are being formed, and in some cases, investigation to better understand the current context.

The terms of reference for the groups include identifying:

What is this project about?

The National Review of Nursing Education identified that nursing career pathways are linked to nurses’ education and training pathways. Currently education for nurses is conducted in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) for enrolled nurses and the Higher Education sectors for registered nurses. Qualification linkages enable individual learners to move from one qualification to another in efficient and effective learning pathways, and underpin career progression for nurses and health workers. Similarly, access to a nursing career through a range of entry points increases the opportunity for some groups and people to become nurses.

The Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) provides a comprehensive, nationally consistent framework for all qualifications in post-compulsory education and training. The AQF connects qualifications from the schools sector, VET sector and higher education sector in a single coherent framework, and provides guidelines containing the main criteria for defining qualifications based on the general characteristics of education and training at each qualification level. An important dimension of the AQF is the development of linkages between VET and higher education. Courses leading to AQF qualifications need to articulate or provide credit transfer to other qualifications.

The National Review of Nursing Education identified a number of issues influencing the availability of effective articulation pathways for nurses and health workers in related fields:

• There is no framework that demonstrates that Enrolled Nurse Competencies are an identifiable subset of the competencies for registered nurses;

• Currently courses for Enrolled Nurses are not part of a national training package, although there are packages for some Certificates 11 and 111 which articulate into Enrolled Nurses Training.

The aim of this project is to strengthen and enable career transitions and opportunities for development in the education and training of registered nurses, midwives, and health care workers by:

Taskforce Role

Taskforce to implement

Commencement of work

JUNE 2004

Key Milestones/Deliverables

For more information on this project, please contact:

Dr Christine Breakwell
N³ET Secretariat

 Recommendation 12 - Printable version(PDF, 54kb)

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