Angelite Nurses

By Rainier Allan Ronda
A total of 152 nursing schools face closure for registering poor passing percentages in the nursing licensure examinations over the past five years.

However, Emmanuel Angeles, Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chairman, said the 152 nursing schools will be given another chance in next year’s nursing examinations.

“It’s a warning for them,” he said.

“This is a wake-up call to our nursing schools to shape up or phase out. They are challenged to improve their quality.”

The 152 nursing schools were found to have performed below the national passing rate of 46.14 percent for the past five years, Angeles said.

Metro Manila has the most number of erring schools among the 152 poor performing schools: Arellano University-Manila, Arellano University-Pasay, De Los Santos-STI College, De Ocampo Memorial College, Dominican College, Dr. Carlos S. Lanting College, Emilio Aguinaldo College, J.P. Sioson General Hospital and Colleges, La Consolacion College Manila, Las Piñas College, Martinez Memorial College, Mary Chiles College, Olivarez College, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Pasay, Perpetual Help College of Manila, Philippine College of Health Sciences, Philippine Rehabilitation Institute Foundation, Southeast Asian College, St. Jude College, St. Rita Hospital College of Nursing and School of Midwifery, STI College-Recto, the Family Clinic, Unciano Colleges and General Hospital, University of Perpetual Help-Rizal, and World Citi Colleges, Quezon City.

Calabarzon has 23 schools in the list; Central Luzon, 20; Ilocos Region, 16; Bicol, 14; SOCCSKSARGEN, 8; Northern Mindanao, 7; Zamboanga Peninsula, Davao Region and Cordillera Administrative Region, 6; Cagayan Valley and Central Visayas, 5; CARAGA Region, 3; and Eastern Visayas and Mimaropa Region, 1.

Earlier, Angeles said 177 nursing schools were found to have poorly performed in the nursing licensure examinations.

“To be fair to all the schools, we had to do a lot of verification,” he said.

Angeles said any mistake might cause unnecessary worry among students and parents and harm the reputation of the schools wrongfully identified.

Among the 152 schools, nine had already stopped offering their nursing course, and five schools had stopped operation altogether, Angeles said.

Next year, CHED will enforce a rule that schools whose performance in licensure examinations is below five percent for three consecutive years would have their permits revoked and their concerned program phased out.

Angeles said CHED is determined to crack down on poorly performing schools to ensure that higher education institutions offer quality education.

“With this move, we are helping not only the parents and students to carefully choose the nursing schools they go to, but we are helping our economy by minimizing frustrations and wastage among our nursing graduates when they take the licensure exams and make sure that they only get quality education from schools that prioritize quality by adhering to world class standards that we are now imposing,” he said.

Angeles said CHED is now looking into poorly performing maritime schools.

The PRC has given them a list of 38 maritime schools that fared poorly in licensure examinations, he added.

CHED will also check maritime schools offering accounting programs, Angeles said.