EDITORIAL - Tainted by cheating

US authorities have lifted a three-month ban on giving licensure examinations to graduates of physical therapy from the Philippines who want to work in the United States. Filipino PT graduates, however, can again take the US licensure exams only on May 25 next year, with a second one set more than six months later.

The ban was imposed after US authorities, citing the results of “forensic analyses on exam performances,” concluded that test questions were leaked by a Philippine review center to a group of examinees. Apart from PT graduates from the Philippines, the US Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy also banned graduates from Egypt, India and Pakistan for similar reasons. The federation administers the US National Physical Therapy Examination.

On complaint of the federation, the St. Louis Review Center in Manila was raided and pieces of evidence on the exam leak confiscated. Criminal charges for copyright infringement have been filed against the owners of the review center for what the federation said was “the widespread sharing of hundreds of live test items.”

It was not the first scandal involving the leak of questions in professional exams in this country. Over the years similar scandals have rocked the Bar examinations. Neither was it the first time that a review center was tagged as the source of the leak, although the one on physical therapy was remarkable in the effort to gather solid evidence and build a strong case against the operators of the center. That effort must serve as a model for discouraging the leak of questions in all professional licensure exams.

This effort must be intensified especially after the ban involving physical therapists was lifted by US authorities. Whether a cheating scandal involves physical therapists, lawyers, nurses or doctors, the unscrupulous practices of a few graduates and review centers have affected the image of all Filipino professionals. With workers from other countries competing with Filipinos for jobs overseas, the qualifications of the Filipino workforce must not be tainted by cheating scandals. Philippine authorities must be relentless in preserving the integrity of all professional exams.