The Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) has gazetted new regulations under the Health Professions Act of 2024, which was published in May this year. The regulations upgraded the admission requirements for nurses.

In the older regulations, a student with 20 points across grade 12 subjects could register as an enrolled nurse, while 23 points can get you in as a registered nurse, depending on the school.

The Health Professions Council of Namibia (HPCN) CEO and Registrar, Dr Cornelius Weyulu, blamed the lower entry requirements on the mushrooming of nursing schools.

"In the past, there was actually no law that allowed us to control these numbers, and that is why the mushrooming was coming from. We have passed a regulation in May which gave us the power to control the number of students that are enrolled in these programmes. We were criticised every now and then by the public that we are allowing people that even have lower points to enter into the health care professions."

Due to poor performance, more than 2600 nursing and midwifery graduates failed the compulsory national assessment administered by the health council last year. 
The council says the pass rate has improved slightly since then. 

"Somewhere in 2025 we tried to issue a directive to control the numbers of the intakes, and we were reminded that actually it is not our responsibility to do it because that is the responsibility of the registering authority." 

One major problem contributing to the high number of nurses' enrolment was the registration pipeline, which became a dual crisis of systemic oversupply in some areas and severe shortage in others, like social workers.

Currently, the Social Workers and Psychology board has 890 members, and it is estimated that there is one social worker for every 17,000 children, according to Namibia's national development data. 

In 2024, the Gender Equality and Child Welfare ministry recorded 14,000 cases of violence against children, a dire situation in the absence of sufficient social workers.

"It should be a concern to all of us, and probably prevention should not wait for professionals to do it because it has to do with how society is carrying itself, and therefore probably we have to start from the household level. Of course health care professionals are required to come in to be able to assist with preventative mechanisms, with rehabilitation and with curative aspects."

So far, there are 17 schools implementing the approved health professions curriculum, and one is pending approval.

The new required admission points to be enrolled as a registered nurse, midwife and accoucheur practitioner are 32 points, and for an enrolled nurse course, one needs 24 points.
There are over 17 000 registered nurses with the Nursing Board.