Students taking the online exams
The introduction of the online licensing exams by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (N&MC) has chalked significant success.
The Netherlands sponsored “NICHE Ghana 261 Project” has so far seen close to 8000 nursing students sitting the online exams since it began in 2018.
The online examination, conducted through the use of advanced ICT solutions, also eased the laborious processes involved with the old manual system of licensure examinations and reduced the waiting time for results from months to days.
Deputy Registrar of the N&MC, Philomena Woolley, who disclosed this at a stakeholders meeting in Accra, said the Council has received positive feedback from stakeholders.
“We have received positive response from stakeholders and they are in tune with us and are happy about what we have done so far,” she said.
Mrs. Woolley said the online licensing exams covers eight courses namely registered mental health, registered community, registered midwifery, post NAC/NAP Midwifery, Critical Care Nursing (CCN) and the ophthalmic nursing students, among others.
She said the Council was planning to enroll nurse practitioners and emergency nursing students on the online exams by December and eventually have all its exams taken online by the end of the project.
Touching on the sustainability of the project, the Deputy Registrar said the Council was exploring other avenues including generating funds internally and seeking an extension of the project.
“In continuing the online examination we are looking at ourselves to be able to sponsor and also we are also looking for an extension of the grant so we can cover more courses because there are a lot to be done in terms of test administrations of the quality of the questions that we administer.”
Once we have completed with all the programmes, rolling it out year after year will become a bit simpler,” Mrs. Woolley explained.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri