NUMBERS don’t lie. Or do they?
The 2004 licensure examination results released by the Philippine Regulation Commission (PRC) showed that the UST College of Nursing ranked second (among schools with 100 or more examinees) with a 98 per cent passing rate as 362 of 368 Thomasian examinees passed.
But among all the other schools in the bracket, or even among all other schools in the Philippines, UST is the only school that had 300 or more examinees (and passers). Western Visayas University and Saint Louis University, the only other schools in the bracket, had a little over 100 examinees.
Meanwhile, the Commission on Higher Education (Ched), in a press release last February, ranked the top 12 nursing schools with an average board passing rate of 90 per cent and above for the last five years. UST placed fifth.
According to College of Nursing Dean Glenda Vargas, UST has been treated unfairly.
“We have been performing very well these past years and we have been producing a large number of high-caliber graduates,” Vargas said. “Our rank in the PRC is fine with me because every school has its own bracket depending on the number of examinees, but the Ched ranking is quite unfair.”
When ranking nursing schools, the PRC classifies each school according to its number of examinees in the board exams. The two classifications are: schools with 50 to 100 examinees and schools with 100 or more examinees. It has no classifications for schools with 300 or more examinees.
On the other hand, the Ched ranking was based solely its decisions purely on the passing percentage of the schools.
Looking at the CHED report, Vargas said UST should have been ranked higher since the University has maintained a very high passing rate despite having an average of more than 350 examinees yearly, factors which Ched failed to consider.
The University of the Philippines-Manila, Saint Paul-Iloilo and Siliman University all average only 30 to 50 examinees.
“Even if you combine all the number of examinees of the schools in the top four, it would not even come close to the number UST has been producing,” Vargas said. “Ched should have classified the schools just like how the PRC did. It would have been fairer that way.”
