adminAuxilia Katongomara Chronicle Reporter
MPILO Central Hospital School of Nursing’s pass rate has gone down, with the majority of students passing after a second attempt, an official has revealed.
The revelation was made last Friday at a graduation ceremony that saw 102 general nurses and 118 midwives graduating with diplomas at the Bulawayo Large City Hall.
The school of nursing’s acting principal tutor, Bekezela Ncube, said a significant number of general nurses were failing national examinations and making it only after a second attempt.
The nursing school has three intakes annually; in January, May and September.
There are 243 students at the school at the moment and training for general nurses takes three years, while that for midwifes takes a year.
“The average pass rate in the first sitting was 68 percent and it looks like a sizeable number of our students are passing at second attempt which is not a healthy situation. As we always say get it right the first time,” said Ncube.
The poor performance at the school of nursing was attributed to lack of resources, among others.
“Among our challenges is that the students need hands on approach, we need to integrate theory and practical and the school also needs a computer laboratory,” she said.
She said the school should also buy quality books and journals for its library.
“We enroll 40 students per intake and this year out of 120 students, three discontinued due to pregnancy and failure,” said Ncube.
The principal highlighted that the shortage of midwives was a cause for concern and there was a mass exodus to other countries.
Dr David Parirenyatwa, the guest of honour at the event, said all nursing posts had been unfrozen; hence most trained nurses would be getting jobs.
He said his ministry was working on a schedule to employ trained nurses from the previous intakes who had been affected by the job freeze.
According to the minister, the nurses would undergo refresher courses as they had gone for a long time without practising.
Dr Parirenyatwa said there was no Ebola in the country and people should not be scared by false alarms.
“There’s no Ebola in Zimbabwe, but as a ministry we encourage people not to visit countries where the disease is wreaking havoc, especially countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo,” he said.
derick.khumalo