THREE Thomasians entered the Top 10 list of passers in the recent interior design licensure examination, while UST was declared second top-performing school in the certified public accountant (CPA) board exam and recovered in the electronics engineering boards.
Roanne Beth So (89.80 percent) and Catherine Almonte (89.40 percent) placed first and second, respectively, in the interior design boards, while Lesley Anne Padilla (87.35 percent) placed eighth. Last year, seven Thomasians entered the top 10 list.
Interior Design Department Chair Rodolfo Olaso said the results are “not too fulfilling” as only three Thomasians topnotched.
“We are always expecting to be in the top ten. Last year, we had seven in the top ten, including the top one. Now, we only have three,” he said.
UST, however, failed to qualify as a top-performing school, because it did not meet the Professional Regulation Commission’s (PRC) requirement of, at least, an 80 percent passing rate.
The University only had a 49.32-percent passing rate this year, equivalent to 36 passers out of 73 examinees. Seventeen first-time takers and 13 repeaters from the University failed this year’s exam.
The national passing rate went up to 52.02 percent with 129 making the cut out of 248 examinees, from last year’s 50.58 percent or 131 out of 259 examinees.
Meanwhile, UST emerged as the second top-performing school in the October 2011 CPA board examination, despite a lower passing rate of 88.86 percent or 343 out of 386 examinees.
Last year, UST’s passing rate was 92.23 percent, with 273 passing out of 296 examinees.
Four Thomasians landed on this year’s Top 10: Nathalie Lao (92.29 percent) at ninth place and Janine Sy, Jenine Tan, and Eunice Faye Valera (92.14 percent) at 10th.
Of the 386 Thomasian examinees, 343 passed, where 313 were first-timers.
The national passing rate slightly went down to 47.49 percent with 4,066 passers out of 8,525 examinees from last year’s 48.36 percent or 3,973 passers out of 8,216 examinees.
The University has also improved in the recent electronics engineering licensure examination, with 64.58 percent of the Thomasian examinees passing the test.
While this was a substantial improvement from the lowly 11.11-percent passing rate last year, UST failed to be renamed top-performing school.
This year, there were 62 passers out of 96 Thomasian examinees. Last year, only 14 out of 126 examinees from UST passed the exam.
No Thomasian entered the Top 10 list.
Electronic Engineering Department Chair Jocelyn Poblete said the students had difficulties answering the pre-board examination they prepared.
“Actually parang nahirapan sila sa pre-board exam. Pero we hired services from different review centers para sa review,” she said.
‘ECE of the year’
A Faculty of Engineering alumnus was named Most Outstanding ECE of the Year in the field of Computer and Information Technology (IT) by the Institute of Electronics Engineers of the Philippines (IECEP) at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City last Nov.5.
The award was given to Engr. Virgilio Javier, who finished Electronics and Communications Engineering in 1982, during the 2011 International Electronics Conference and Expo Philippines.
Javier currently leads the IT Department’s customer services team of Aldar Propertiesin Abu Dhabi, the premier real estate development, management, and investment company of the United Arab Emirates.
He was the first IT staff to establish the company’s IT Department when it was founded in 2004, bringing it to its level as the leading real estate company in the Gulf Region.
Founded in 1950 by the pioneers in the field of electronics and communications in the country, IECEP is recognized by the PRC as the only Accredited Professional Organization for the electronics engineering profession, and is also a founding member of the Philippine Electronics and Telecommunications Federation (PETEF). with reports from Reden D. Madrid