Healthnicon Formal Programmes Information

Nursing programmes and Community health worker programmes

There is a difference between nursing programmes and Community health worker programmes.

The biggest difference is that they fall under different regulatory bodies.

Since the new Nursing programmes are higher education programmes, those programmes must be accredited and registered with the South African Nursing Council (SANC) and the Council of Higher Education (CHE).

The Community health worker programmes are skills related and therefore must be accredited by the HWSETA and may be presented as Full qualifications or Skills programmes.

In addition Educational Institutions may offer short learning programmes which are not credit bearing and are utilised for continuous professional development.

There are changes in the nursing qualifications by SANC, which is the gradual phasing out of the legacy qualifications and implementing new qualifications. This process is explained in a SANC circular 7/2016 dated 20 December 2016:

“The legacy programmes include the course leading to enrolment as a Nursing Auxiliary, the course leading to Enrolment as a Nurse and the Bridging course for enrolled Nurses leading to registration as a General Nurse.

The last enrolment date for the course leading to enrolment as a Nursing Auxiliary and the course leading to Enrolment as a Nurse was 30 June 2015.

The last enrolment date for the Bridging course for enrolled Nurses leading to registration as a General Nurse is 31 December 2019. This means accredited institutions can still offer this programme as approved.

The new nursing qualifications will include Higher Certificate-Auxiliary and Diploma-General nurse. The start date for enrolment in to the Higher Certificate qualification is January 2018 and for the Diploma qualification is January 2019.

Educational institutions must be accredited to offer these programmes before they are allowed to advertise and enrol/ register students into these qualifications. All Nursing education institutions (NEI’s) are still in the process of accreditation.”

Please note that due to the fact that the new nursing qualifications is on a higher education level, all candidates must have met the minimum requirements for entry into the preferred qualification.

On the National Senior Certificate (Grade 12 certificate) it indicates for which qualification the candidate has met the minimum requirements.

Eg, “This candidate is awarded the National Senior Certificate and has met the minimum requirements for admission to diploma or higher certificate study as gazetted for admission to higher education, subject to the admission requirements of the higher educational institution concerned.”

This means a candidate can apply for a diploma programme or a higher certificate programme, but NOT for a degree programme.

The admission requirements for the Higher Certificate and Diploma qualifications, as indicated in the respective Qualification frameworks are as follow:

Access to this qualification is National Senior Certificate or an equivalent qualification at exit level 4

Learning assumed to be in place and recognition of prior learning for the new nursing programmes as determine by the Nursing Council and as stated on the SAQA qualification document:

Communication Skills at NQF Level 4
Mathematical Literacy at NQF Level 4
Computer Literacy at NQF Level 3
Life Science at NQF level 4

Healthnicon Private Higher Educational institution is accredited with HWSETA and is registered to offer a 6 months’ Community Caregiver skills programme.

This programme will assist candidates to gain the skills and knowledge that they have not achieved with their National Senior Certificate, to cover the gap and for access to these new nursing qualification.

After successful completion of the programme candidates will receive a certificate and will be able to seek employment as a care giver.

Healthnicon is also offering several non-credit bearing short programmes for continuous professional development, these include:

Nanny (Au pair) Short Programme
House Manager Short Programme
Healthcare Housekeeping Short Programme: Infection prevention and control
Geriatric Part time Short Programme
Orthopaedic Part time Short Programme
Paediatric Part time Short Programme.

Healthnicon is registered with the South African Nursing Council and the Department of Higher Education.

Healthnicon is currently not accepting any applications for the new nursing qualifications until accreditation status are confirmed by the CHE.

For full information regarding the programmes currently offered please contact one of our campuses.