Nurses, midwives passed to join health services

State minister for Primary Education Kamanda Bataringaya releases nurses and midwives national exams results in Kampala on Thursday. PHOTO BY RACHEAL AJWANG

What you need to know:

The Uganda Nurses and Midwives Examinations Board (UNMEB) executive secretary, Ms Hellen Mukakalisa, partly attributed the slight improvement in performance to the new innovations in assessing students which could have positively impacted on their performance

KAMPALA.
A total of 3,380 (90.3 per cent) nurses and midwives have passed the November 2014 final examinations making them eligible to join the health services.

Of these (3,380), 2,354 were certificate candidates and 41 of them posted distinctions, down from 54 candidates last year. However, some 360 candidates were ungraded, meaning they did some work but it was not clear.

A total of 3,740 students sat for the exams. Only eight diploma candidates got distinctions. Another 2,131 candidates received credits, while 1,200 got passes.

The Uganda Nurses and Midwives Examinations Board (UNMEB) executive secretary, Ms Hellen Mukakalisa, partly attributed the slight improvement in performance to the new innovations in assessing students which could have positively impacted on their performance.

“The continued implementation of promotional exams has also increased rigor in schools on the part of students, teaching and clinical personal,” she said, adding “Candidates nowadays search for new knowledge and skills with underlying objective of improving their competence in the nursing profession.”

However, she said some students failed the exams at certificate level due to a mismatch of instructional materials and clinical sites compared to the high students’ population in schools. Ms Mukakalisa added that majority of diploma students have families and find it difficult to balance between studies and social issues .

While releasing the exams in Kampala on Thursday, the State minister for Primary Education, Dr Kamanda Bataringaya, applauded the candidates for posting good results, adding that government was doing whatever possible to address the shortage of tutors which has for long dogged many health training institutions .

Dr Kamanda, who was flanked by Mr John Muyingo, the State minister in charge of Higher Education, said his ministry will, starting next year, allow the board to publish names of health training schools which have consistently posted failures as a way of encouraging them to improve .

Currently, there are 68 institutions that offer nursing and midwifery courses.

To qualify, a student must have excelled in biology and chemistry, and priority is usually given to female students.

During the November 2013 exams, a total of 3,052 passed at both certificate and diploma levels out of the 3,412 who sat, representing 89.4 per cent. A total of 1,868 candidates passed with credits, 1,123 with passes, 61 with distinctions while 360 completely failed the papers.

SHORTAGE
The number of midwives trained in Uganda still remains low. This is partly blamed on government’s failure to provide adequate funding to training institutions and equipping of laboratories.