Nursing education leadership strengths in South Africa: An exploratory study

Introduction and background

Numerous multifaceted issues continue to pose a serious challenge to the success of nursing education and training worldwide. In South Africa, distinct situations, such as the transitioning of public nursing colleges to higher education to be part of a unified higher education system, amplify the problems faced by nursing education leaders. To unravel these complexities, an exploration of South Africa’s existing nursing education leadership strengths was undertaken.

Purpose

To describe the leadership competencies deemed as an existing leadership strength in a challenged and transforming South African nursing education context.

Method

As part of a larger study, embedded in social constructionism, an exploration of the country’s existing nursing education leadership strengths was conducted with the purposefully selected nursing education leadership experts. Qualitative, descriptive, and contextual data yielded by the ten participants were analysed using thematic analysis.

Findings

Four main themes emerged namely, leadership competencies; governance, leadership, legislation, and policy; staff development as well as community engagement.

Conclusion

The authors propose that the described leadership competencies offered by the nursing education leadership experts as the existing nursing education leadership strengths in the country be considered as a foundational basis to navigate emergent challenges in wider contexts.