CHED list of poorly performing nursing schools questioned

MANILA, Philippines - Arellano University questioned yesterday the Commission on Higher Education (CHED)’s move to include its nursing school in its list of 152 poorly performing schools.

Francisco Paulino Cayco, Arellano University president, said the CHED and the Professional Regulation Commission may have erred in coming out with the list supposedly drawn from the PRC data on the performance of those who took the nursing board exams and their school affiliation.

Cayco expressed concern that the PRC and CHED might have included repeat takers of the nursing board exams to make their list.

Lawyer Frederick Dedace, vice president for human resources and director for legal affairs of the university, said CHED’s own Memorandum Order 14 – which laid down the policies and standards on the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program in Philippine universities – provided that only first-time examinees of a school should be included in any move to identify poor-performing schools.

Dedace added that CHED Order 14, issued last April, had set a 30-percent passing rate as the cut-off score wherein schools that failed to make the score will be considered for gradual phase out of their program.

 “We should be gauged on the guidelines that they themselves had set,” Dedace told The STAR.

He explained that in Article 11 of the order, it said that “the computation of the 30 percent shall only involve the ratings of the examinees who took the nurse licensure examinations for the first time.”

He said based on the same order, CHED should only be starting their monitoring of nursing board exam performance from this year’s board exam results.

Cayco said while there were years when a large number of the graduates had failed the PRC nursing board exams, the AU’s College of Nursing also had years when their graduates were among the topnotchers in the exams and had a big percentage of passers.

He noted that in the last PRC nursing board exams, their alumna, Michelle Alejandro Barberan, a graduate of the AU College of Nursing in Manila, placed third.

Cayco noted that based on the PRC’s own certification, out of the 337 first-time takers of Arellano University Manila in the June 2009 nursing board exams, 232 passed, garnering them a passing percentage of 68.84 percent.

He said of the 425 repeat takers from their school in the same exams, 103 passed, for a 24.24 percent. Overall, AU College of Nursing has 335 passers out of 762 takers, translating to an overall 43.96 percent score.

In the November 2008 board exams, AU graduates Roberto Asuncion and Paul Fabian Gumabao were among the top 10 board passers, with Asuncion ranking fifth, and Gumabao ranking ninth, he said.   – Rainier Allan Ronda