25 nursing schools marked for closure in 2006 still operating - Ched

MANILA, Philippines — Commission on Higher Education Executive Director Julito Vitriolo on Friday revealed that 25 “non-performing" nursing school are still operating two years after a technical committee recommended their immediate closure. In an interview, Vitriolo said the Commission’s hands are tied due to injunctions from the courts. “Unfortunately, while we were aggressively doing this (cracking down on schools with low passing rate), we faced court cases in the process. Associations involving hundreds of schools intervened in court and they were able to get a permanent injunction, so hindi kami makakilos at this point," he said. Vitiriolo said that with the new administration of Ched Chairman Emmanuel Angeles, they will find way to finish the court cases. Earlier, Dr. Marlyn Lorenzo, former chairperson of the Ched Technical Working Group on Nursing, criticized the Commission for its inaction on her recommendation on the closure of the schools. She said the number of schools her committee wanted closed was 27 but two schools took it upon themselves to scrap their nursing courses after getting information that they will be closed. Lorenzo, who teaches at the University of the Philippines' College of Nursing in Manila, resigned as member of the technical group of the Ched that monitors nursing schools, over Malacanang's failure to adopt recommendations to improve the nursing and health care system. Vitriolo said they are doing their best but they have to abide within the bounds of the law. He said the Commission is already implementing another recommendation made by Lorenzo, which is to publish effective nursing schools. Lorenzo said earlier that based on her observation the quality of the nursing graduates in the country has declined as the passing rate has slowly gone down – from 54 % in 2004 to the present 42%. She said that while the number of nursing schools has doubled to 400 many of these are not performing well. These schools produce poor graduates and do anything, including cheating just to evade the closure of their profitable nursing schools. - GMANews.TV