The Kenya Union of Nurses has rejected the claims by Health CS Mutahi Kagwe that nearly 300 of their members had failed the mandatory English language proficiency test.
A report announced by the Kagwe last week indicated that out of the 300 nurses who sat for the English test only 10 passed.
The test is part of the requirement for the nurses to get the opportunity to get jobs in the United Kingdom.
On Friday, the Nurses Union Deputy Secretary-General, Morris Opetu said that it was unrealistic, that close to 290 nurses would fail the test, with English being Kenya’s second language and called out the CS for making the private and confidential results public.
“I strongly disagree that nurses failed the English test, with all those years nurses have been in school, they have been taught and spoken English,” Opetu said.
The Nursing Council of Kenya through their Twitter account said that the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection are working on modalities to prepare nurses and midwives that wish to sit for the tests to improve their success rate.
They said that the National Employment Authority (NEA) received and submitted 3,329 applications from interested persons to the Nursing Council of Kenya for verification and shortlisting of candidates after the call for application.
And based on the evaluation criteria, 2,685 candidates were shortlisted and were required to submit additional requirements.
The Council said that they received a total of 2,050 responses and it was established that those who had met the criteria, done and passed the International English Language.
They stated that for the 14, both testing Systems (#ILETS) and Computer-Based Tests (#CBT) only nine had valid certificates of both tests.
The Kenyan nurses were examined on Specialist Language Courses (SLC) online English test which basically focuses on day-to-day words and commonly used phrases.
The test usually contains 60 questions with multiple choices and nurses are expected to nurse them within 20 minutes.
They also took the OET Placement Test which consists of four parts; reading, listening, writing, and speaking.
And almost all of them are done and submitted online and upon going to the UK they were supposed to take another test.
Opetu revealed that nurses who work abroad are paid between Sh600,000 and Sh800, 000 per month.
Edited by D Tarus
