2 600 nursing graduates fail national HPCNA assessment
Over 2,600 nursing and midwifery graduates in Namibia have failed the mandatory national assessment since 2025, resulting in a 61% failure rate for practitioners. Parliamentary officials are now questioning the quality of education provided by local training institutions.
Why it matters
High failure rates in critical healthcare professions threaten the stability and quality of the national health system.
More than 2 600 nursing and midwifery graduates have failed the national exam to practise in Namibia since last year, adding to widespread concerns about the quality of nursing training in the country.
The figures, which the Health Professions Councils of Namibia (HPCNA) recently presented the parliament’s standing committee on education, cover evaluation sessions held since the exam became compulsory for locally trained nurses and midwives in January 2025.
According to the statistics, 2 743 of the 5 427 graduates evaluated passed, while 2 683 failed, including candidates who were recorded as failures after not attending the examination.
The statistics show 1 523 nurse and midwife practitioner graduates were expected to be evaluated.
A further 60 candidates did not sit for the evaluation and were regarded as having failed, bringing the total number of failures to 923. This resulted in a 39% pass rate and a 61% failure rate.
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