Abstract:
The higher education sector in the 1990s actively encouraged applicants who did not have undergraduate
qualifications to enter graduate courses on the basis of prior learning activities including
work experience. The transfer of undergraduate nursing programmes to the university system left a pool
of highly experienced nurses, usually with extensive training and experience, with few educational
opportunities to advance themselves. This paper reports a comparison of academic achievements in
graduate nursing programmes between those with undergraduate qualifications and those admitted
using a recognition of prior learning (RPL) initiative. Results indicate that the academic achievement
of the hospital-trained nurses was similar to those admitted with a formal qualification. For five
consecutive annual cohorts of graduates, academic achievement for both groups, as measured by the
weighted average mark (WAM), was recorded across the five years. The size of each group changed
over the period of the study; the tertiary qualified group was smaller in the earlier years but became
larger over time, while the hospital certificate group was initially large and became smaller over time.
Those with tertiary qualifications were significantly (p<0.01) younger than those with hospital
certificate qualifications, though in both groups cohort age increased over the five years.
