Registered Midwifery (RM) Candidates from the various training institutions across the country ended their 2019 Online Licensing Examination set by the Nurses and Midwifery Council (NMC) on Monday, September 16.

The exams which started on Thursday, September 12, 2019, involved 3,502 RM and were held in 44 centres across the country.

The Registrar of the Nurses and Midwifery Council, Felix Nyante in an interview in Accra on Monday, said the next set of candidates made up of 1,662 Nurse Assistant Clinical (NAC) and Nurse Assistant Preventive (NAP), would also begin their exams from Tuesday, September 17 to Thursday, September 19.

He said these were nurses who had undergone two-year training and enrolled to do diploma in Midwifery, after having worked for three to five years on the field.

He explained that prior to these, a total of 416 Registered Mental Health Nursing Candidates and 845 Registered Community Nurses had written their exams between September 9 and 11, 2019.

Mr Nyante said this brings the total number of Candidates for the year’s Online Licensing Examination to 6,425, saying it was the second time since its introduction in 2018.

The online examination, he said, had replaced the manual to facilitate quick release of results which would happen within 10 days of writing the exams, compared to the previous one which took three months to be released.

He described the innovative approach to holding the Midwifery examination as part of efforts by the NMC to ensure best practices and efficiency in licensing qualified midwives, which were held under the strict supervision of invigilators.

The Registrar explained that prior to its implementation, the Council took time to engage the various training institutions in an intensive education on the mode of operation of the online exams, and further conducted mock exercises to prepare the candidates psychologically by giving them a prior exposure to the computers and the new mode of examination, before the main exams.

He said the examination had nothing to do with one’s typing skills, but they needed to master the use of the mouse to select an appropriate answer to a question.

Mr Nyante said the examination had been incidence free but urged the management of the various examination centres to install good back-up generators that could power the UPS systems in cases of power outages, to ensure smooth outcomes.

Some of the Midwifery Candidates who spoke to the media, praised the NMC for the innovation and confirmed that it was a welcoming improvement over the previous manual system, but urged the Council to hasten efforts to also include the other programmes in the Online system.