The government on Monday flagged off the second batch of nurses to the United Kingdom as part of a bilateral agreement on health between the two countries.
UK Deputy British High Commissioner Leigh Stubblefield and Health Cabinet Secretary(CS) Susan Nakhumicha waved off 76 unemployed nurses to be placed in various hospitals across Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The health practitioners were selected from over 700 applicants set to leave the country on August 24.
They will be absorbed into the National Health Service, the publicly funded British healthcare system.
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Kenya plans to transfer 20,000 nurses to UK hospitals under the Memorandum of Understanding agreed in July 2021 to boost the welfare of its migrant workers abroad.
The first group of 19 nurses, chosen from the 3 329 applicants, arrived in the UK last year.
After then, to adhere to the provisions of the bilateral agreement, the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) started providing English skills to nurses.
According to then-Health Cabinet Secretary Kagwe, he said the training will increase the nurses' English proficiency and make them more "internationally competitive."
Nurses make up 30% of the 12,000 students at KMTC.
At the time, Kagwe declared that only those not yet integrated into the local work market would be sent from Kenya.
One must be a Kenyan citizen and possess a diploma or bachelor's degree in nursing recognised in Kenya to be eligible for employment under the programme in the UK.
Successful applicants must undergo training before leaving for the UK and also pass the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or the Occupational English Test (OET), as well as the Computer-Based Test (CBT).
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