EDITORIAL - Diploma mills

The Commission on Higher Education has announced that it will be shutting down 177 nursing schools. CHED officials cited the perennial failure of graduates of the 177 schools to pass the nursing board examinations. The shutdown is in line with a continuing assessment of the performance of both public and private institutions of higher learning. Nursing schools in particular have mushroomed all over the country, with little regulation, as the demand for nurses boomed around the world.

The CHED should go ahead with its plan, and politicians should not get in the way. Similar efforts by the commission in the past were blocked by politicians to whom owners of some schools appealed for intercession. The owners were relatives, friends, political supporters or campaign donors of the politicians, who in turn forwarded the appeals all the way to Malacañang. Palace officials, loathe to antagonize political allies, gave in.

The biggest losers were nursing students and their parents, many of whom invested a fortune in tuition and other school expenses, only to see the graduates fail to hurdle the nursing licensure exam because of the substandard education they received.

The CHED had earlier phased out law schools whose graduates consistently failed to pass the Bar exams. The campaign will gradually include other courses that require graduates to pass licensure examinations. School administrators who see education as nothing more than the collection of tuition are no better than thieves. If politicians try to intervene in the CHED’s campaign, they should be identified to the public.

As the CHED shuts down these diploma mills, it should work to raise education standards in existing schools. The country has an acute lack of learning institutions at all levels, and the problem is expected to worsen as resources fail to keep up with a booming population. If the government is unable to meet the demand, it must provide incentives for private investments in quality education. Shutting down substandard schools must be complemented by other measures to improve higher learning.