Tuesday, November 18, 2008

“50% flunk nurse exam every year”

Half of the nursing graduated flunk the nursing licensure examination every year, according to the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC). Marco Sto. Tomas, PRC Board of Nursing member, said the passing rate in the nursing licensure examination has been on the decline in the past decade.
“The number of board examinees is on the rise since year 2000, but the passing rate exhibited a declining trend from a high of 55.8 percent in 1998 to a low of 45.2 percent in 2006 or an annual average of 49.5 percent,” he said.
Sto. Tomas said the PRC has recorded a total of 224,961 nursing board flunkers from 1998 to June 2008. “One out of every five nursing schools registers a zero passing mark, which is indicative of the questionable quality of education and/or decreasing quality of students admitted for the nursing profession,” he said.
In June 2008, the passing rate 43.1 percent was lower than the average registered for the period 1998 to 2007, he added. Sto. Tomas said based on government figures, the country has 480,992 licensed nurses out of the 523, 272 who passed the nursing board examination between 1952 and the present.
“Not because they were not employed in hospitals, they are already jobless because many registered nurses are opting to work in other companies like call centers,” he said. Actually, there is a surplus of nurses because of a market slowdown since 2006 due mainly to the retrogression in the United States, he added.

This is a bad outcome because instead of our education getting better, it shows that it’s just getting worse. I think one of the reasons why there’s a big number or nursing graduates but half of it only pass in the nursing licensure examination is because of the boom of nursing employment in other countries. Because of this, many were interested in taking up the course. They thought that it would help them though it’s really not their forte. It affects them because they don’t really think of the possibilities. Because of the high rate of nursing students, others think that nursing is easy because a lot take it. The quality of the education was not improved also because of the vast number of students within a short period of time. We Filipinos should take this as an advantage because of increase of nursing job opportunities in other countries.

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