The Nurses and Midwives Council of Malawi (NMCM) has disclosed that students under Christian Health Association of Malawi (CHAM) colleges who failed recent licensure exams are to sit for supplementary exams.
The development follows concerns from students after a 75 percent failure rate for last year’s licensure exams. Only 168 passed the exams out of 669 something that angered the students.
Reacting on the development, the students faulted the results and they demanded that the exams should be remarked.
However NMCM has ruled out a remark saying the students are to sit for supplementary exams.
NMCM Registrar Dr Isabella Msolomba Musisi disclosed that the council resolved to have the students sit for another exam as remarking will not change the grades since many questions were under multiple choice.
Musisi added that those who sat for the third time and failed will be barred from sitting for the supplementary exams that have been scheduled for this month.
After the poor results were released, the students from CHAM institutions faulted the council arguing that it is stopping them from becoming registered nurses.
The council however has been distancing itself from the allegations saying the students failed the exams that were fair.
So nursing is very tough at council level and very easy at college level. This is nonsense, immoral, totally silly and unacceptable!
The high failure rate of these student nurses is a good indication that education standards in Malawi are becoming poor. If students can fail multiple choice questions how would they perform given structured questions? I agree with NMCM that those who failed should write supplementary examinations and if the fail again then they should be barred from writing the examinations again. NMCM should not be intimidated by these failed student nurses into what they want – an easy way to becoming a nurse. These are the people that will be dealing with the health of people and it is imperative that they are qualified to attend to patients and the only proof that they are qualified nurses is by passing the prescribed examinations. Keep the standards NMCM, do not dilute your examinations in order to accommodate the failures!!!!!?