800 review centers face closure

A total of 800 review centers nationwide face closure for violating official guidelines and for operating without ties to accredited schools, a top education official reported yesterday.

Julito Vitriolo, Commission on Higher Education (CHED) deputy executive director, told reporters at the weekly Balitaan sa Rembrandt Hotel forum in Quezon City that new and stricter guidelines will be enforced once President Arroyo signs the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) under Executive Order 566, which regulates the operations of review centers.

The executive order was issued in the aftermath of the recent nursing licensure test leakage scandals allegedly perpetrated by some of the prominent review centers in Manila and Baguio City.

Vitriolo said that based on the initial inventory of CHED, only 20 percent or 200 of the 1,000 review centers for nursing, engineering, medicine, accountancy and other courses covered by the licensure examination of the Professional Regulation Commission, have official tie-ups with duly accredited schools. The rest are operating on their own.

He said the commission would seek assistance from the National Bureau of Investigation, Philippine National Police, the Department of Justice, and other law enforcement agencies to investigate fly-by-night review centers.

"The strict enforcement standard for review centers is for them to convert into schools or tie up with duly-accredited schools, otherwise we declared their operations illegal," Vitriolo said.

Many review centers require reviewees to pay fees ranging from P3,000 for a two-day review course to the maximum of P50,000 for a month-long review of certain courses.

He said the additional expenses demanded from graduates have made the review centers a multibillion peso industry.

Vitriolo said CHED’s main priority is to identify the fly-by-night review centers that offer only short review courses in major cities nationwide.

He said unless the new IRR is implemented, the operations of review centers are temporarily suspended and those who want to continue their operation must first tie up with schools or convert the review centers into regular schools before they operate.

Vitriolo clarified that graduates can review for the board examinations without enrolling in review centers.

"A review (in a review center) before taking any licensure examination is not a compulsory requirement for graduates," Vitriolo said. — Perseus Echeminada