Students who failed licensure exams last year under Christian Health Association of Malawi (CHAM), on Tuesday reacted negatively to the Nurses and Midwives Council of Malawi’s (NMCM) decision of organizing supplementary examinations to them.

Over 500 out of 669 CHAM students, failed the 2016 licensure exams representing 75 percent, according to the report.

The failed students protested the results and demanded the re-marking of the exams.

However NMCM Registrar Dr. Isabella Msolomba Musisi, told the media on Monday that the body has ruled out re-marking the exam sheet and said “the students are going to sit for supplementary exams.”

According to Musisi, this is because re-marking will not change the results.

She further disclosed that the NMCM has barred all the students who failed for the third time from re-sitting the examinations.

The supplementary exams are expected to be scheduled this month, according NMCM.

However, the concerned students, through their union secretary, Sunganani Gondwe, described the decision as unfortunate.

According to Gondwe, they want to rewrite the exams in the month of May, 2017 in order to have sufficient time for preparations.

He said writing the said supplementary exams this month, is not good for them because the period is too short.

“Exams need preparations, we were not expecting to have it this year,” Gondwe said.

He said the students are planning to hold demonstrations in Lilongwe, against the NMCM decision snd added that “the Easter Holiday has delayed our demonstrations plan, we wanted to go to the street as soon as possible, but we shall hold it after the holiday.”