In this schedule "the Act" means the Nursing Act, 2005 (Act No. 33 of 2005), and any expression to which a meaning has been assigned in the Act shall bear such meaning and, unless the context indicates otherwise—

"academic year"

means a period of at least 44 weeks of learning in any calendar year;

"assessment"

means a structured process for gathering evidence and making judgements about a learner's performance in relation to the prescribed requirements for the programme;

"assessment method"

means the act that the assessor engages in, utilising a variety of assessment strategies;

"assessor"

means a practitioner registered as such with the Council who will be responsible For the assessment of the learner achievement of learning outcomes for the programme;

"clinical accompaniment"

means a structured process by a nursing education institution to facilitate assistance and support to the learner by the nurse educator at the clinical facility to ensure the achievement of the programme outcomes;

"clinical facility"

means a continuum of services to promote health and provide care to individuals and groups, used to teach learners;

"clinical learning opportunities"

means the range of learning experiences available in a healthcare setting or other experiential learning sites for a learner to gain the required clinical skills;

"clinical placement"

means the period spent by a learner in clinical and other experiential learning sites to ensure that the purpose of the programme is achieved;

"clinical supervision"

means the assistance and support extended to the learner by the professional nurse or midwife at a clinical facility with an aim of developing a competent, independent practitioner;

"competence"

means the ability of a practitioner to integrate the professional attributes including, but not limited to, knowledge, skills, judgement, values and beliefs required to perform as a professional nurse or midwife in all situations and practice settings;

"comprehensive nursing"

means nursing interventions that integrate and apply the scientific process of the full range of nursing, that is general, community, midwifery and mental health, that promote and maintain the health status of healthcare users in all contexts of healthcare delivery;

"fee"

means a fee or fees determined by the Council from time to time and published by notice in the Gazette;

"fundamental learning"

means learning which forms the grounding or basis needed to undertake the programme;

"integrated assessment"

means forms of assessment which permit the learner to demonstrate applied competence and which use a range of formative and summative assessment methods;

"learner"

means a person registered with the Council as a learner nurse or a learner midwife in terms of section 32;

"learning outcomes"

means the prescribed competencies and educational outcomes for the programme;

"moderation"

means the process conducted by an independent moderator, which ensures that assessment of the outcomes prescribed far the programme is fair, valid and reliable;

"moderator"

means a practitioner registered as such with the Council who will be responsible for the moderation of assessment conducted by the nursing education institutions for the programme;

"programme"

means a purposeful and structured set of learning experiences that leads to registration in the categories professional nurse and midwife;

"programme outcomes"

means the equivalent of the exit level outcomes of qualification;

"qualification"

means a planned combination of learning outcomes with a defined purpose that is intended to provide qualifying learners with applied competence for meeting the prescribed requirements of the qualification in the categories professional nurse and midwife that is registered on the National Qualifications Framework (NOE);

"recognition of prior learning"

means the evidence-based assessment comparison of previous learning and experience of a learner, howsoever obtained, against the learning outcomes required for the programme and the acceptance of such previous learning for the purpose of accessing a programme; and

"section"

means a section of the Act.