Nursing exam flunkers can be practical nurses

Nursing licensure examinees who would not pass the June 2007 may still have the opportunity to practice their course through a scheme the Department of Labor and Employment has been trying to work out. Labor Secretary Arturo Brion said only half of the 78,000 examinees, including the 12,000 retakers, were projected to pass the board licensure test. DOLE is contemplating on a fall back position of issuing licenses as practical nurse to those who would fail the test. “[We are anticipating] that many of them will do re-take so we think that one fall back position is to have them licensed as practical nurse. This is assuming that there are some that would not do the re-take," Brion said in an interview. According to Brion he already proposed this measure to Senator Edgardo Angara and to the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and to Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) and they all agreed to its viability. “We will meet soon and discuss this," he added. Licensing the nursing examinees who failed the board exam as practical nurse is a way of helping them achieve their dreams of finding employment opportunities abroad, Brion said. “These will be a sunrise opportunity for them because they could still practice their course even though they failed the test," he noted. Demands for practical nursing are similarly increasing especially in hospitals abroad, the labor chief noted. Results of the June nursing board exam would be out “by the middle of August," Brion said. The next licensure exam for nurses is scheduled in December. The 12,000 retakers in June were those who wanted to seek employment in the United States following the decision of the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) to deny work visas to the June 2006 examinees because of allegations of cheating that marked the testing process. The Philippines failed to convince CGFNS to reconsider its position. - GMANews.TV