Most Pinoys trust nurses who passed June exam - SWS poll

Despite the controversies generated, a majority of Filipinos still trust the nursing graduates who passed the leakage-tainted June 2006 licensure exam. This was based on the results of a survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS), showing most Filipinos "realistically" expect the leakage to affect their landing jobs abroad. SWS said its Third Quarter 2006 Social Weather Survey, done on Sept. 24 to Oct. 2, 2006, posed the statement, "Even if there was a leakage in the recent Nursing Board Exam, I would trust someone who passed that exam to take care of me in case I would get sick." Of those interviewed for the survey, 53% agreed and only a fourth of the respondents, or 25%, disagreed. The rest were undecided or had no answer.. Its fourth quarter survey done Nov. 24 to 29 posed to respondents the statement, "Because of the cheating that happened in the recent Nursing Board Exam, from now on there will probably be a drop in the opportunities for nurses trained in the Philippines to get jobs abroad." Of those interviewed 53% agreed, and only 20% disagreed, the SWS said. Thus, it said the recent decision by the US Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) to deny VisaScreen certification for Filipino nurses whose credentials depend on the June 2006 Philippine Nursing Board Examination "probably comes as no shock to most of the Filipino public." "SWS surveys last year showed that, while most Filipinos would trust the competency of those who passed the leakage-marred June 2006 Nursing Board exam, most also expected, realistically, the leakage to dampen nurses' opportunities for work abroad," the polling agency said. It adeed that the June 2006 nursing board exam leakage was quite important to the Filipino public, as those who had followed this news "Very/Somewhat Closely" represented 55% in September 2006 and 52% in November 2006. Interest in the exam leakage news and the expectation that the leakage would affect foreign job opportunities were directly related to each other, it added. "The expectation in November 2006 that job opportunities would drop due to the leakage was 60% among those who had followed the news closely, compared to only 46% among those who had followed it Only A Little/Not At All," it said. The SWS surveys used face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults divided into random samples of 300 each in Metro Manila, the Balance of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao (sampling error margins of ±3% for national percentages and ±6% for area percentages). The area estimates were weighted by National Statistics Office medium-population projections for 2006 to obtain the national estimates. - GMANews.TV