The education experiences of Zimbabwean nurses recruited to undertake pre-registration nurse education in the UK

This research is concerned with decolonisation and migration in the context of nursing education. It offers a new perspective in shaping knowledge production within nursing education by drawing attention to the impact of how knowledge is produced and structured within nursing education. This research explores the experience of migrant nursing students, of whom I was one, recruited from Zimbabwe to train and work as nurses in the United Kingdom (UK). It adopts a case study approach to investigate my nursing education experience and that of 6 other Zimbabwean nurses. Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) was used as a framework to situate my personal story and centralise it, thus facilitating my dual role as both participant and researcher. Participants were identified and interviewed within a Heuristic Enquiry (HE) approach and gave retrospective accounts of their pre-registration nursing education in the UK following international recruitment. Through its deliberate use of a non-traditional research approach, the research broadens the understanding of what can constitute scholarship while pushing back against academia’s tendency to restrict what is permitted scholarly recognition. The research positions personal experience as a knowledge form by demonstrating personal experience’s authority in shaping knowledge and contributing to scholarly literature. Additionally, the research showcases the value of African knowledges. Through the participant accounts this research exposes and discusses the entanglements of the teaching and learning exchange. The research identifies these entanglements as relating to issues of knowledge hierarchies, non-native status, language, belonging, race and transition into a western adult education context. The research interrogates these in the context of postcolonial dynamics and how these shape diasporic identities in general and African identities in particular. Through its engagement with multiple fields of enquiry, current contextual debates and direct experiences, this research proposes a platform through which and from which to analyse the UK as an environment that frames the experiences of migrant students within nursing education.