ABSTRACT
Outcomes-based education (OBE) is a competency-oriented, performancebased approach to education which is aimed at aligning education with the demands of the workplace, and at the same time develops transferable life skills, such as problem-solving and criticalthinking skills. A paradigm shift to OBE came about as a result of its potential to address the concerns about graduates from conventional nursing programmes. Some of these concerns include that newly employed graduates come to clinical settings academically equipped, yet with limited ability to apply their knowledge. Their mastery of life skills (such as, problem solving skills, leadership skills, communication skills, criticalthinking skills) required in contemporary clinical environments, is limited. They struggle to cope with the dynamics in clinical settings. Professionals in healthcare settings find themselves helping these graduates make the transition from being students to being professional practitioners. Employing such graduates has many legal and financial implications in the workplace or healthcare system with the institutions having to spend time and money during the first years of practice of such practitioners to get them up to speed.
