 Nursing and health technologies technicians (technicians in clinical analysis, radiology, audiology, nuclear medicine and other technical fields in health) are also polytechnic higher education courses offered by nursing schools and schools of health technologies which are grouped into polytechnic institutes, and, in some cases, into universities (remaining in each of those situations as autonomous schools belonging to the polytechnic subsector).The nursing schools were legally defined as comparable to polytechnic institutions in 1988 (Administrative Rule 480/88 of 23 December 1988 - "Decreto Lei n.º 480/88, de 23 de Dezembro"), and started to provide higher education degrees in nursing in 1990 (Rule 821/89 of 15 September 1990 - "Portaria n.º 821/89, de 15 de Setembro").Before 1990 nursing schools were not academic-degree-conferring institutions, and did not belong to the higher educational system.