PRC dispels leakage fears in coming nursing exam

MANILA, Philippines – The Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) dismissed yesterday reports of another leakage in the forthcoming Nursing Licensure Examination (NLE).

PRC Board of Nursing (BON) member Marco Sto. Tomas said there is no truth to reports that examinees in Baguio, Cebu and Surigao obtained copies of the examination.

“How can they know the set of questions to be given when even we, the members of the BON, do not know the content of the examination,” Sto. Tomas said, adding that the actual test to be taken by the close to 89,000 aspiring nurses is yet to be finalized, even though the BON had already encoded possible questions.

He said that text messages have been circulating among examinees that a certain review center and a former PRC official have been telling examinees that they got a “leak” of the NLE questionnaire.

BON chairwoman Carmencita Abaquin said the PRC has been exerting all efforts to ensure that the scheduled NLE on Nov. 29 and 30 will be tamper- and leak-proof.

Abaquin explained that the licensure examination is composed of five tests and each test has 100 questions.

“The BON encoded 500 questions from where the 100 will be taken and it’s not us who will be choosing the 100 questions but a machine. So we do not know what would be the questions,” Abaquin pointed out.

She said that prior to the machine selection, the encoded questionnaires were properly sealed and kept inside the vault at the PRC office.

“After the encoding, the possible test questions are now in the safekeeping of the PRC and being tightly guarded by agents of the National Bureau of the Investigation and the Philippine National Police,” she disclosed.

Abaquin said the questions would only be taken out of the vault for the “extraction” or machine selection to be done while the BON is under seclusion.

“We will be in quarantine starting Nov. 19 during which the extraction will be done as well as the printing of the test questions,” Sto. Tomas said.

“While in seclusion, any communication cannot get out so a leak is not possible,” he added.

After the printing, the examination will be properly sealed and tightly guarded during transport to the provinces and until the examination date.

“We have adopted these tamper-proof measures to ensure that the 2006 NLE leakage controversy will never happen again,” Sto. Tomas said.

Abaquin said the PRC and the nursing sector are still “healing” from the controversy, so they are trying their best to maintain the integrity of the licensure examination.

“If these false reports will continue, not only the PRC but our nurses who are aspiring to work abroad will be affected,” she explained

Sto. Tomas admitted that some review centers could possibly make money by coming out with false reports of leakage that encourages examinees to take review and coaching from them.

He called on the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and other concerned government agencies to strictly monitor the operations of review centers.

Abaquin advised examinees to refrain from buying “past” test questions because the PRC will not be using them in future licensure examinations.

“We don’t recycle test questions, so they should stop buying,” Abaquin said as she urged nursing schools to implement the appropriate curriculum so that their students will pass the NLE.

She said more than half of the examinees fail in the NLE because the schools were not implementing the proper curriculum.