RP’s best and worst nursing schools bared

A congressman bared a list of the country’s best and worst nursing schools yesterday to help guide parents on where to send their children aspiring to enter the profession.

"We are making this list available so that parents may be guided accordingly, so as to avoid sending their children to deficient nursing schools whose graduates have at best lost the chance of passing the licensure tests," said Catanduanes Rep. Joseph Santiago.

Santiago said the list had been "culled from the records" of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), the agency that administers licensure examinations, and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), the agency that supervises such higher learning institutions.

The lawmaker said he had been prodding CHED to evaluate "all schools nationwide based on the performance of their graduates in professional licensure and eligibility tests, and to put the ratings in the newspapers for all to see."

Santiago said that out of the 55,744 nursing school graduates who took licensure examinations from 1999 to 2003, only 27,345, or 49 percent, passed the exams to become registered nurses.

Included in the 20 best-performing nursing schools were UP-Manila with a passing percentage of 99 percent; St. Paul College-Iloilo and Silliman University, 98 percent; University of Sto. Tomas, 97 percent; West Visayas State University, 96 percent; St. Louis University-Baguio and Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, 95 percent; Southern Luzon Polytechnic College, 91percent; Trinity College and Cebu Doctors’ College, 89 percent; Mountain View College, 88 percent; Remedios Romualdez Memorial School-Manila and University of the East-Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center, 85 percent; St. Paul University-Tuguegarao, 84 percent; Velez College Cebu, San Pedro University-Davao and Cebu State College, 82 percent; De la Salle University-Dasmariñas and La Salette-Santiago, 81 percent; and Romualdez Medical Foundation, 80 percent.

Among the worst nursing schools were Mapandi Memorial College at nine percent; Gallego Foundation Colleges, 15 percent; Galang Medical Center, 17 percent; Unciano Colleges, 18 percent; Good Samaritan Colleges, 19 percent; Lipa City Colleges, Immaculate Conception College-Albay, Mabini Colleges and St. Gabriel College-Kalibo, 20 percent; Notre Dame of Jolo College and Philippine College of Health and Sciences, 21 percent; Golden Gate Colleges, Northern Christian Colleges and Tecarro College Foundation, 22 percent; Dr. P. Ocampo Colleges, De Ocampo Colleges and World Citi Colleges-QC, 23 percent; San Pablo Colleges and Medina College, 24 percent; and City College of Urdaneta, 25 percent.