‘Diploma mills’  hurting RP nursing education – COA report

The proliferation of nursing “diploma mills” or schools offering poor quality nursing education could affect the Philippines’ image as the leading producer of high-quality nurses in the global job market, a recent report said.

In a consolidated interim audit report of the Commission on Higher Education’s 2007 operations, the Commission on Audit (COA) has expressed concern over the agency’s failure to close down nursing schools whose nursing graduates have consistently performed miserably in the licensure examinations of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC).

It was learned that the regulatory power of CHED on erring schools with obvious sub-standard college programs is mainly vested on its regional directors who issue sanctions ranging from “initial warning for program termination” to the issuance of a “recommendation for program termination.”

COA auditors said that for the past years, there were 19 schools that did not even have one nursing graduate who passed the board exams.

“From 2001 to 2005, only 111 out of 263 nursing schools nationwide managed to have at least 50 percent of their graduates pass the PRC licensure examinations, with 19 or 7.22 percent of these schools failing to have even a single passer,” the COA audit report said.

“Yet in over 10 years of the CHED’s implementation of the program phaseout, no school offering nursing program with poor PRC performance has ever been closed due to inadequate imposition of CHED’s regulatory powers,” the report said.

“As the number of examinees in the PRC nursing board exam tremendously increased every year for the last four years (2003 to 2006) due to proliferation of nursing schools in the country, CHED’s deficient imposition of its regulatory power of closing schools’ nursing programs with poor PRC performance may contribute to the continued deterioration of quality nursing education and, consequently, its global competitiveness,” COA warned.

“The condition does not only affect the quality of education but also limits the chances of graduates in the ensuing years,” COA added.

In their 2007 audit of CHED, COA cited the case of the agency’s region I office which has 23 nursing schools in its jurisdiction, many of which garnered a low passing rate in the licensure exams.

PRC figures showed that out of the 23 nursing schools, seven incurred a low percentage of passers ranging from 5 to 21 percent.

“Despite this, CHEDRO I has not taken any action to impose appropriate sanction such as issuance of initial notice or warning for program termination or recommendation for closure of the foregoing HEIs (higher education institutions) with low percentage of board passers,” COA said.

COA auditors noted that CHED regional offices had seemingly neglected closing down nursing diploma mills of private and state colleges and universities while it was able to take action against other college programs whose graduates also take PRC licensure examinations.

“Our verification disclosed, however, that for over 10 years, CHED had only implemented phaseout of programs in Bachelor of Science (BS) in Accountancy; Civil, Chemical, Electrical, and Agricultural Engineering; Chemistry; Customs Administration; and others, except BS in Nursing,” COA said.

CHED’s acting chairman Secretary Romulo Neri earlier revealed plans to implement a massive “rotation” of the CHED’s regional directors, citing “fraternization” between the directors and the HEIs in their jurisdiction as a major reason for the move.

It was learned that all of the regional directors have stayed in their posts from three to 12 years.

The “rotation” proposal, however, has faced tough and bitter opposition among the agency’s regional directors and division chiefs who vowed to go to court to stop what they called an “unnecessary” reshuffle.