Bill regulating professional exam review centers sought

MANILA, Philippines - Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Carlos Padilla has urged Congress to regulate the operation of nursing, physical therapy (PT) and other professional examination review centers.

In Resolution 2190, Padilla, whose wife once served as a member of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), said as far as he knew, no government agency is in charge of regulating the operation of these review centers.

“It’s neither the PRC nor the Commission on Higher Education (CHED),” he said.

He said there is no problem if a college or university conducts its own review for its graduates taking professional examinations since these institutions are under the supervision and regulation of CHED.

The problem lies with other review centers, which are established solely for profit, he added.

Padilla urged the House to pass a bill that would not only regulate review centers but prescribe standards for their review materials and techniques as well.

He noted that some graduates availing themselves of the services of these centers do not make it in professional examinations.

The lawmaker pointed out that there have also been scandals involving review centers and reviewers due to the lack of a law regulating professional exam reviews.

In July 2010, authorities in the United States banned PT graduates from the Philippines, India, Egypt, and Pakistan after the discovery of leaked test questions in Manila.

The Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy (FSBPT), which administers the US National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE), announced that it was suspending NPTE tests for PT graduates from the four countries for about a year.

“This necessary security measure is in response to compelling evidence gathered by the federation reflecting systematic and methodical sharing of recalled questions by significant numbers of graduates of programs in the affected countries, as well as several exam preparation companies specifically targeted to these graduates,” FSBPT said.

“The evidence was obtained through extensive forensic analyses of exam performances, as well as a variety of legal actions brought by the federation in the United States and abroad,” it said.

“Most notably, this includes the raid and seizure of evidence from the St. Louis Review Center in Manila, Philippines, and its alleged owners/operators, Gerard L. Martin, Roger P. Tong-an and Carlito Balita, which revealed the widespread sharing of hundreds of live test items,” the federation said.

“In response, the federation is pursuing criminal copyright prosecution against St. Louis Review Center and its owners, has invalidated the scores of several individuals believed to have unfairly benefited from advance access to test questions, and has removed the compromised items from the exam,” it added.

It pointed out that its investigation had “revealed that the sale and sharing of recalled test questions extends beyond this single test preparation company (St. Louis) and that the sharing of test items has continued despite the federation’s past efforts to ensure the security of the exam.”

FSBPT announced that it would design a “separate, secure exam” for PT graduates from the four countries.

Toward the latter part of 2010, the federation announced that it had already designed such an exam and that PT graduates from the four countries could start taking the special test in mid-2011.