Background: Nursing education's positioning within higher education mandated public nursing education institutions to develop competent nurses to manage diverse disease profiles of the country. Nurse educators were tasked to develop a competency-based curriculum with emphasis on primary healthcare to help prepare nurses to be independent, leaders, researchers, and critical thinkers.
Objectives: To explore and describe the challenges experienced by nurse educators in Gauteng when developing the curriculum for the postgraduate nursing diploma programmes.
Method: An exploratory descriptive qualitative research design was used. Purposive sampling was followed to select the participants based on the inclusion criteria. Four focus group interviews were conducted, comprising of six participants each, leading to a sample of 30. Data collection were between March 2022 and April 2022. Thematic data analysis were performed following Tesch's eight steps of analysis.
Results: Themes that emerged during data analysis were psychological and emotional impact, challenges with communication and interpersonal relations, nurse educators experienced transformation and empowerment, nurse educators encountered barriers that impacted on their allocated tasks, and, nurse educators demonstrated resilience with the curriculum development processes.
Conclusion: Participants reported positive and negative experiences they encountered during curriculum development. The findings revealed that nurse educators need support when involved in curriculum development, for instance, managerial, administrative, technological, financial, and most importantly capacitation, as this could enable them to work effectively without deterrents.Contribution: This study highlights the need to train and support nurse educators when developing a curriculum to equip them with the necessary competencies.
Keywords: competency-based approach; curriculum; experience; nurse educator; transition.