Nurses final exam registers 97% pass rate

For the first time in recent years, the Ministry of Public Health has released a 97% pass rate for its final nursing examination. It was revealed by a Consultant hired by the Ministry that the positive results follow several changes which were made to the programme.

Screams of excitement filled the air when the results were announced in front of the Georgetown Nursing School’s building on East Street, Georgetown, on Thursday afternoon.

Chief Nurse, Tarmattie Barker reported that in 2016, there was a 7% pass rate.

Earlier this year, 179 students were required to re-sit the 2016 State Final Nurses examination but only 23 passed all segments of the exam. This was no different from previous years when the majority of the nurses failed the exam.

However, the Ministry of Public Health this year took a decision to revamp the programme with the help of a consultant and external tutors for both practical and theoretical sessions.

Speaking at an event, the Consultant, Mandy LaFleur assured that, “We didn’t drop any educational standards, we didn’t change the number of questions, we didn’t change the standard of marking and so forth.”

She added that to date, the achievements encompass a successful review of the questions submitted by the nursing tutors for the 2017 exam, completion of a remedial session in all Nursing Schools across Guyana and the sharing of a diagnostic report with large stakeholders.

The Consultant related that extra activities were done in classrooms to enhance comprehension and critical thinking of the nurses with the goal of ensuring they can perform in the practical setting.

Minister of Public Health, Volda Lawrence, who was visibly elated at the pass rate, said there are other changes which are being looked at on a long-term basis. The changes include a review of the criteria for entry of students, to split the Nursing Programme into semesters, making it easier for students and invest more in providing better classrooms.

“We want to ensure that the batches of students at our various facilities give representation of persons across the ten administrative regions across the country so that the Ministry can move away from transferring persons to places that they don’t want to go and they don’t feel comfortable and you don’t get 100% out of them,” the Minister added.

The nurses were all encouraged to be tolerant and pleasant when dealing with the public. The St Joseph Mercy Hospital and the New Amsterdam Nursing School recorded a pass rate of 100%, the Charles Rosa School of Nursing in Linden recorded a 98% pass rate, the Texila American University a 75% pass rate and the Georgetown School of nursing, a 99.3% pass rate.

As such, over 200 Registered Nurses are expected to join the profession in the coming week.