English speaking nurse fails English tests

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gzt

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#322798 23-Sep-2025 10:59

Native English speaker can't pass English tests required for nursing registration in NZ:

Stuff: She has now sat six Occupational English Tests (OET), flying to Auckland for each. She has also sat three International English Language Testing System (IELTS) tests.

Is this english testing particularly harsh?

Edit: Fixed link to avoid login wall

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#3417821 23-Sep-2025 11:09

not the written test but the speech and hearing section presumably

Batman

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#3417824 23-Sep-2025 11:11

imagine taking a test with this guy

wasabi2k

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#3417830 23-Sep-2025 11:15

OET Test on Paper sample tests – Nursing | OET - looks like it is applied to the profession.

invisibleman18

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#3417834 23-Sep-2025 11:22

You'd think there would be some sort of feedback on which parts were failed so you can at least work on it before sitting it again. Surely we want the person to be able to pass as we need people in that profession so knowing what area needs improvement would be helpful rather than just computer says no.

I remember at university being required to go and sit some English exam in my first year even though I've never spoken any other language and had passed NCEA level 3 English. Most of the people there didn't really understand why they had to do it but seemed to be required by a lot of courses. Can't remember the content (it would have been 2005) but remember it being a waste of time in my situation. Would have thought level 3 English would have been sufficient but whatever.

gzt

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#3417851 23-Sep-2025 12:03

batman

Embarrassingly that old guy is a Kiwi educated at Otago in the late sixties. Imo he was probably just dozing off.

gzt

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#3417874 23-Sep-2025 14:04

According to the article NZ is short 587 nurses every shift. That is severe. It is obvious we need to train more nurses and doctors in NZ.

For male doctors my theory is that many excellent people who would rise to the top of those professions are being attracted to technology careers. Not because of any financial aspect just because they start with tech interests at an early age and continue developing those through teens and eventually going through a degree. If we want more doctors we'll need something like that early interest and development with medical knowledge. Not an easy one but not that difficult. Financially the vast majority will be better off in medicine over tech imo. The junior doctor overwork aspect is not a healthy thing and that needs to be vastly improved.

Although some of the above also applies to nurses I really have no idea. Some quick googling looks like nurse pay in NZ isn't great that probably doesn't help but I think doesn't explain it fully. Graduate pay looks ok and then a bit low in the mid-career, with a reasonable boost for nurse practitioners. Some focus on achieving nurse practitioner level would be beneficial. There is a noticable lack of male nurses in the profession and imo that is likely to be a big part of the problem. A focus on inservice training for resthome care workers could really help grow capability as well and provide a career path from so-called 'unskilled' to 'skilled' and nurse qualified. The larger rest home operations and there are many are certainly big enough to provide that on-site.

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#3417875 23-Sep-2025 14:08

I know plenty of well educated native English speakers who struggle to write a sentence without spelling errors, improper use of apostrophes, and mixing up homonyms.

k1w1k1d

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#3417878 23-Sep-2025 14:38

I used to cringe when I read some of the emails from the managers at work. I used to wonder what our suppliers and customers thought when they read some of them. Maybe they were just as bad at writing a sentence correctly.

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#3417879 23-Sep-2025 14:39

gzt: According to the article NZ is short 587 nurses every shift. That is severe. It is obvious we need to train more nurses and doctors in NZ.

For male doctors my theory is that many excellent people who would rise to the top of those professions are being attracted to technology careers.
.

Nope, the simple reason many people don't apply to be doctors is that we ration those who can enrol for medical training, its an expensive course and the government (who pays 75%) has set a cap of ~600 1st year places ..

Because the number of people applying is so large, they create a strict rationing criteria of grades and diversity....

If you make the rules too hard. people will simply go and do something else....its a whole lot easier to become an engineer or software developer than a doctor....

" As of 2025, New Zealand has 614 funded training places for doctors across the two existing medical schools at the universities of Otago and Auckland. This represents 10.4 medical school graduates per 100,000 people.
As a comparison, Australia, with a population five times larger than New Zealand, has 22 medical schools and trains seven times as many medical students, representing 14 medical school graduates per 100,000 people.
New Zealand has the lowest ratio of medical schools to ppulation in the OECD.
https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/2025-07/240725%20MoH_New%20Medical%20School%20Detailed%20Business%20Case_v5.0_Redacted%20WM.pdf

scuwp

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#3417929 23-Sep-2025 14:45

I get the distinct impression the 'nurses council' are very protectionist. I am all for minimum standards but can't help but wonder if they have the settings wrong, and are simply too engrained (pig headed) to see sense. Sometimes these organisations (and I include Unions here) can actually be a barrier to progress.

Not getting feedback on where you went wrong is just dumb, but is sadly repeated elsewhere - the high school CAA exams are another example. You get told if you achieved or not, but don't get any constructive feedback to help you understand the areas you need to focus on to improve.

We really do shoot ourselves in the foot sometimes, then complain when it all goes wrong.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

ezbee

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#3417931 23-Sep-2025 14:51

Thanks wasabi2k, the missing bit from the Stuff report.
""OET Test on Paper sample tests – Nursing | OET - looks like it is applied to the profession""
https://oet.com/ready/sample-tests/oet-test-on-paper/nursing

Seems to be much more than an English test.
Links in ability to take clinical notes, spot important information and relate to diagnosis and treatment.
Doctors fleeting contact with patents only emphasizes nurse's role in monitoring as well as treatment.

On recent adventures as support for older relatives at hospital, there are a variety of accents, so people are passing ?

I gather problems for New Zealanders getting into nursing are...

Trainees now need to pay for training for entry level training at providers.

Hospitals don't want to employ entry level, complete their practical and advance RN training as they are not funded for that.

Discouraging young to take up this challenging career as you may end up with debt and a dead end.

‘Huge blow’ as fewer than half of graduate nurses get hospital jobs
https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/360768437/huge-blow-less-half-graduate-nurses-get-hospital-jobs

Anyway we get lower taxes, so all is good.
That 8 hours waiting in A&E gives you some downtime to think.
Work hard and you can afford private, or go overseas. :-)

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gzt

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#3417933 23-Sep-2025 14:58

wellygary: As of 2025, New Zealand has 614 funded training places for doctors across the two existing medical schools at the universities of Otago and Auckland. This represents 10.4 medical school graduates per 100,000 people. As a comparison, Australia, with a population five times larger than New Zealand, has 22 medical schools and trains seven times as many medical students, representing 14 medical school graduates per 100,000 people.

That's shocking. I see they are still stuffing around a bit with the proposal for a medical school in Hamilton. Looks like 2026 before that one gets a green light:

https://www.health.govt.nz/strategies-initiatives/programmes-and-initiatives/health-workforce/new-medical-school

Any idea what ratio is projected when that is in operation?

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#3417936 23-Sep-2025 15:12

Disclaimer: This was over 15y ago so things may have changed.
My wife and I moved from France circa 2006 and she was a freshly registered French nurse. With her English level being what it was (French schools are not known to teach foreign languages well), she took up some jobs such as caregiver with the idea of brushing up on our language skills until she got get certified/registered in NZ..

Fast fw about 18 months and she had to take the IELTS a total of 5 times, each time "failing" on the "Writing" part. (back then Nursing Council insisted each candidates obtained at least 7 out of 9 for every single one of the 4 parts).
For those not familar, the writing test is essentially a couple of essays where you are asked to argue for/against something, presenting ideas, etc..
We asked for some feedback from the British Council (the peeps behind IELTS) and all we got was "your ideas were not original enough or not developped enough" or similar. At a time where the country seemed desperate for nurses, this was infuriating.

All that to say that yes, I'm not surprised that such a high bar at the IELTS can trip up even native speakers.

FYI: My wife is a Senior Nurse Specialist now doing an amazing job after passing the IELTS on the 5th attempt. I still remember where we were when we read that results letter with all 4 categories being above 7.

Cheers

tieke

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#3417954 23-Sep-2025 15:57

wellygary:

Nope, the simple reason many people don't apply to be doctors is that we ration those who can enrol for medical training, its an expensive course and the government (who pays 75%) has set a cap of ~600 1st year places ..

...

" As of 2025, New Zealand has 614 funded training places for doctors across the two existing medical schools at the universities of Otago and Auckland. This represents 10.4 medical school graduates per 100,000 people.
As a comparison, Australia, with a population five times larger than New Zealand, has 22 medical schools and trains seven times as many medical students, representing 14 medical school graduates per 100,000 people.
New Zealand has the lowest ratio of medical schools to ppulation in the OECD.
https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/2025-07/240725%20MoH_New%20Medical%20School%20Detailed%20Business%20Case_v5.0_Redacted%20WM.pdf

It's obvious from that why Auckland and Otago Universities took issue with the government's support for a new medical school - while the pro-new school business case highlights the number of schools, with NZ having the "lowest ratio of medical schools to population", Auckland and Otago quite rightly pointed out that if you want more doctors, simply funding additional places at the current schools (which have existing infrastructure and programs) makes a lot more economic sense than spending hundreds of millions on a new vanity-project building. Especially when Auckland and Otago said they could immediately fill another 300 places if there was training funding provided vs 110 new places being provided at an indeterminate future date from a new facility.

gzt

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#3418020 23-Sep-2025 17:07

Yeah that's weird. Why were the govt not keen on increasing funding for existing medical schools?

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