Nurses Unions have slammed Health CS Mutahi Kagwe for “embarrassing” them by making their English test results public.
Addressing the press yesterday the Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) Kisumu branch Secretary-General Ann Owiti weighed in on the issue saying the move by the CS exposed nurses to public ridicule and might lower the confidence of Kenyans in the health workers.
Kenya Union of Nurses Deputy Secretary-General Morris Opetu also added that it was unrealistic for only 10 nurses to have failed the test despite Kenya being an English-speaking nation.
“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. 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,” Opetu stated.
On Wednesday, Kagwe revealed that only 10 out of 300 health workers who did an English test for UK jobs passed.
Read: 290 Out 300 Health Workers Fail English Test For UK Jobs
The scheme, hatched in July, would have seen hundreds of Kenyan nurses and other health workers get a chance to work in the UK.
Currently, there are more than 30,000 jobless Kenyan nurses and healthcare workers in the country.
Kenya is expected to send 20,000 nurses to work in the UK on a three-year contract in an agreement signed between the two countries when President Uhuru Kenyatta visited the UK in July.
Successful candidates will earn Sh450,000 a month and a three-month free accommodation on arrival for the three-year contract. The deal is renewable for another three years.
The UK government will pay for air tickets, with each nurse receiving a further Sh750,000 relocation allowance.
Currently, there are 894 Kenyans working across all roles in the National Health Service in England.
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