Nursing board exam ‘leakage-free’--execs

By Tetch Torres
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 14:01:00 11/11/2008

MANILA, Philippines -- The nursing board exam this November will be “leakage-free,” according to officials of the Board of Nursing, amid reports that one of the review centers have released some items in the tests scheduled for the 29th and 30th.

Carmencita Abaquin, BON chairperson, and member Marco Sto. Tomas, assured the public that they have taken the necessary steps to ensure the credibility of the forthcoming licensure exam.

They disclosed that text messages being circulated said that a review center has leaked parts of the test in Baguio, Cebu, and Surigao and that members of the Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) -- one former, the other incumbent -- were behind this.

But Sto. Tomas said security measures have been adopted to prevent a repeat of the June 2006 scandal. These include the quarantine of the members of the PRC and BON from the time the questionnaires are “extracted, printed, and sealed.”

Sto. Tomas said 500 questions per test have been encoded into the computer. These will enter certain parameters/framework per competency (for the 5 tests) and the computer will extract these questions based on the framework by which they have been entered.

"All these are done under quarantine meaning we have no communication outside," Sto. Tomas said.

And then the questions will be extracted, printed, and sealed, he said.

Printing has been centralized unlike during the board exam controversy in 2006 when printing was done per region.

In transporting of questionnaires, there will be escorts from the Philippine National Police (PNP) and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Sto. Tomas said.

"These text messages from review centers are only using the leakage as a marketing ploy to entice examinees. They are capitalizing on what happened years ago and the PRC is suffering from this scheme," Abaquin said.

The BON is coordinating with the nursing schools, as well as the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), to implement strict measures to make sure that the country will have high quality nurses, Sto. Tomas said.

There are a total of 88,750 nursing graduates set to take the second licensure examination on November 29 and 30, with the figure considered to be the highest in PRC history.

The BON will go on quarantine starting November 19.