Kenyan nurses who reportedly failed basic English tests thus losing high-paying jobs in the United Kingdom have finally broken their silence.
Out of the 300 who sat the test, only 10 passed, meaning that 290 of them will miss out on the opportunity to work in the UK.
But the nurses union has now rejected the results. The union has further reprimanded Health Cabinet Secretary, Mutahi Kagwe, for demeaning them by announcing results that are not factual through a press address on Friday, October 29.
Without giving evidence to back up their claims, the nurses' representative remarked that it is impossible to report such a big miss.
Kenya Union of Nurses Deputy Secretary General, Morris Opetu, said Kenya is an English-speaking nation and it was unrealistic that close to 300 nurses would fail the test.
"I don’t agree that nurses failed the English test. All the years' nurses have been in school, they speak and are taught in English. It should come with facts," Opetu stated.
He called out the CS for making public the results that were supposed to be private and confidential.
They even dragged the Cuban doctors and other health workers from other nations brought to Kenya and who were never subjected to any tests before being offered lucrative government jobs.
“For you to prepare for and take an exam successfully, you must be given at least two months to prepare."
“This was not done. Therefore, I don’t agree with the CS statement that Kenyans failed the English test,” Opetu insisted.
Opetu revealed that nurses who work abroad are paid between Ksh600,000 and Ksh800,000 per month.
“Exams, be they British or Kenyan, are a private affair not to be discussed in public. We should not be embarrassed and looked down upon by other health workers,” he stated.
Karatina University nursing lecturer, Florence Munoru, added that the British oral English test was about pronunciation.
“Patients really respect us and the care we give them. Even the Cuban doctors who are treating our patients cannot speak the local dialect. It is good to expose the nurses to the same environment and situation, other nurses, out there are exposed to,” Munoru noted.
The Kenyan nurses were examined on Specialist Language Courses (SLC) online English test. It basically focuses on day-to-day words and commonly used phrases.
It test usually contains 60 questions with multiple choices and nurses are expected to nurse them within 20 minutes.
They also take the OET Placement Test which consists of four parts; reading, listening, writing, and speaking. Almost all of them are done and submitted online.
