Nurses are demanding an apology from health CS Mutahi Kagwe for exposing their poor results in an English test required for UK jobs.
Through their Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN), nurses said that Kagwe had let them down by exposing their results to the public.
“He ridiculed us before other health workers, a test is supposed to be private and shouldn’t be discussed in public, it was wrong for the CS to release such a report without informing the examinees,” said KNUN Deputy Secretary-General Morris Opetu.
The nurses further questioned why they were entitled to the test yet the Cuban doctors working in the country’s public hospitals were not subjected to English and Kiswahili languages proficiency tests.
“Nursing issues should be private and to the nurses only. Kenya is an English-speaking nation and we speak the Queen’s language, therefore you cannot tell us that over 300 nurses failed,” Opetu stated.
Kisumu branch KNUN secretary Anne Owiti expressed her disappointment over the CS’s remarks.
“Exams are supposed to be handled with a lot of confidentiality. The government disappointed us by failing to adequately prepare our colleagues. Nurses did their English test way back in Form Four and were ill-prepared,” said Owiti.
Owiti further urged the UK government to stop subjecting Kenyan nurses to the English proficiency tests.
“From pre-school to secondary, colleges and universities we have been doing our examinations in English, we don’t know why you have to subject us to the same. We are helping you address your shortages, why frustrate us?” she posed.
Last week while at a conference in Mombasa, CS Kagwe revealed that only 10 nurses out of 300 who had applied for the UK jobs passed the test.
“Only 10 out of 300 health workers sent for an English language test passed. We had negotiated for clinical workers for job exports but this turn of events is unfortunate,” Kagwe said.
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