The Nurses and Midwives Council has cancelled results of 56 nursing trainees for cheating in examination through the use of social media application ‘Whatsapp’.

Students at the Holy Family Nursing and Midwifery Training College in Berekum in the Brong Ahafo Region were found to have cheated in the examination hall when they sat for the licensing examination using the Whatsapp platform on their phones.

They are said to have taken pictures of the question papers, sent them to an external collaborator who answered them and then sent the answers back to the students in the examination hall via the same platform.

The students were found to have cheated in the examination hall after a mobile phone belonging to one of them fell from her panties onto the floor.

A chief invigilator at the examinations hall provided photographic evidence of correspondence between the students and an external collaborator.

A team of consultants was tasked to investigate and ascertain the extent to which the candidates involved benefitted after which the students were questioned.

Initially, majority of them feigned ignorance about the evidence provided. However, upon further probing, they changed their stance, with the explanation that they did not understand the question.

The college has been de-recognised by the NMC as an examination centre for three years, while the students will not be permitted to write the licensing examination for two consecutive times. 

According to Felix Nyante, the Registrar of the NMC, the decision of the council to sanction the students was based on the fact that they flouted the NMC’s rules, which included “bringing foreign materials into the examination hall, collusion and mass cheating”.