January 15, 2021

Since July last year, we made some changes to our examination timetable to assist students with completing their studies. NEBDN has been working hard to ensure it can continue to support trainee and qualified dental nurses with their professional development during these very challenging, and often uncertain times, as we continue to monitor the Government guidance on tier restrictions and lockdown measures. Our key focus remains to continue to provide students and course providers with as much stability and information as possible, to provide a workable solution with minimal disruption to the services we can provide.

Therefore, all exams including the upcoming June and January 2022 OSCEs, will now be online for the next business year to February 2021/22, alongside all written exams which will now remain online permanently.

Save the date – upcoming online exam series 2021/22:

National Diploma OSCE exam 2021:
20-29 January 2021

Post-Registration written exam 2021:
12 March 2021

National Diploma written exam 2021:
10 April 2021

National Diploma OSCE exam 2021:
Dates TBC June 2021

Post-Registration written exam 2021:
Dates TBC September 2021

National Diploma written exam 2021:
5 November 2021

National Diploma OSCE exam 2022:
Dates TBC January 2022

This communication follows on from our October 2020 update, where we communicated to our stakeholders that all written exams would remain online for the foreseeable future, which left the OSCE exams to be considered – as this is a much bigger operational process for our team.

We are pleased to report that after six months of successful online exam deliveries in Post-Registration and National Diploma exams, 89% passed the online OSCE exam, which is the second highest pass rate since 2018 and a testament to the hard work of our course providers and their students.

We appreciate that some students may be apprehensive about the online exams and may have deferred hoping for a face to face OSCE exam, however our priority is ensuring a safe assessment method is given to the students sitting their exam, and given the challenging times we continue to face, we feel this provides more certainty and allows the students a chance to complete their studies.

If you are sitting an upcoming exam and have any questions, please speak to your course provider who will be able to help you.

Written by
Jade Monori