EVEN with four graduates making it to the top 10 of the Architecture licensure exams last January, including the topnotcher, College of Arhictecture Dean Chona Ponce lamented the board’s antiquated design exams.
Ponce said the anti-technology approach in the licensure’s design exams tend to favor provincial universities and colleges where advanced computer-aided design programs are usually unavailable.
“Among the top ten, most of the topnotchers come from the provincial universities and colleges,” she said.
Based on the results released by the Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC), six out of 13 individuals in the top 10 were graduates of provincial universities, including two from Ateneo de Davao University.
Ponce also blamed the design exams for UST’s lukewarm over-all performance. The University registered a 52-per cent passing rate (65 out of 126 Thomasian examinees passed). UST posted a similar rate in June last year.
“The College is already using computer programs for making designs but the Board and the other provincial schools are still using manual drafting,” she said.
Alumnus Johnstein Lou Castillo had an 86.70 per cent rating to lead all new architects. The other UST graduates in the top 10 were: Sherwin Espejo (fifth place, 83.30 per cent); Francis Patrick Basilio (seventh place, 82 per cent), and Charina dela Cruz (ninth place, 81.90 per cent).
To remedy the problem, Ponce had previously told the Varsitarian that the College had implemented shorter deadlines in manual drafting assignments so that the students could address their slow free-hand drawing.
The national passing rate was 42.85 per cent (441 out of 1029 examinees nationwide passed). The University was fifth in the over-all ranking among schools.
In the Pharmacy licensure exams last month, the University topped the more-than-50-examinees category with a 62 per cent passing rate (26 out of 58 Thomasian examinees passed).
Faculty of Pharmacy Dean Priscilla Torres, however, was dissatisfied with the results.
“Hopefully we will have a higher passing rate this July,” Torres said. “I told the students that we should go for the gold and target a 100 per cent passing rate.”
Humphrey Casauay was the only UST graduate in the Pharmacy board’s top 10 with a 92.50 per cent rating for third place.
The national passing rate was 48 per cent as 566 out of 1182 examinees passed nationwide.
Meanwhile, the University ranked first and third in the Occupational Therapist (OT) and Physical Therapist (PT) licensure examinations among the schools with 10 or more examinees last Feb. 8. UST garnered 92 per cent for the OT exams (12 out of 13 UST examinees passed) and 80 per cent for PT (eight out of 10 Thomasian examinees passed).
OT graduates Anna Kristina Limpingco (82.40 per cent) and Lorra Gaida Padiernos (80.80 per cent) placed second and third in the exams.
Unlike last year, when Thomasians took the top two spots in the PT exams, UST graduates Tiffany Lee Villamor (82.40) and John de Leon (81.90) placed seventh and tenth.
There were only 535 out of 1,339 exam takers passed the PT-OT exams. A.D.J.C. Adriatico, Marlene H. Elmenzo, and J. T. Villaflor
