Gov’t rushes to contain damage from nursing exam leakage

The Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) is now trying to contain the damage caused by the nursing licensure examination leakage last June.

Because of the scandal, the Philippines’ bid to establish a testing center here for Filipino nurses eyeing jobs in the United States was seriously set back.

Commission chairman Dante Ang said the US National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) has indefinitely put on hold the evaluation of the Philippines’ application.

"The (NCSBN) board has withheld our application indefinitely. They postponed the discussion on our bid because of this incident. They were supposed to tackle our application last July," Ang told The STAR.

"One of the main considerations in putting up such an international testing center is that the country should be able to ensure there will be no leakage. But this thing happened," he said.

To contain the setback, a task force formed by Mrs. Arroyo to spearhead the Philippines’ application is now working hard to show that authorities would go after the exam leakage culprits and no future similar incidents would happen again.

"We will make sure that those guilty will be held responsible. We will come up with our recommendations so the guilty parties will be prosecuted," Ang said.

The NCSBN is a non-profit organization composed of the boards of nursing all 50 US states, the District of Columbia, and five US territories — American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

The NCSBN, composed of member boards, provides leadership to advance regulatory excellence for public protection.

Mrs. Arroyo has created a task force led by the CFO to support the speedy establishment of a testing center in the Philippines so Filipino nursing graduates would have no need to go abroad to take the qualifying examination.

The National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) is a standardized examination that the NCSBN uses to determine whether or not a candidate is qualified to be a nurse in the United States.

The NCSBN has authorized the conduct of the NCLEX in Hong Kong, London and Seoul in 2004 and set up additional testing centers in Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Mexico and Taiwan in 2006.