Nursingschool.com says that it is not easy to determine which is the best nursing school in the US due to certain considerations that is unique from one school to another. It appears that, here in the Philippines, this scenario is completely the opposite because it is so easy to determine which nursing schools are of standards and which are simply doing subterfuges to prop up their institution and make a great deal of revenues.
When the dawn of high nursing manpower demands in countries like USA, UK, Canada, and Australia came to notice in the Philippines, middle-income families started to urge their high school seniors to redirect every goal towards taking Nursing in college. And it went all the way through. Until now, thousands and thousands of high school graduates are filing their application for the Nursing course every year.
I wish to
narrow my discussion to my own
city. Here in my city, there are 5
nursing schools. Among these schools, only
West Visayas State University –
College of Nursing (WVSU-CON)
implements a
strict screening during its opening every year. During my time in 2004, the total
applicants of WVSU-CON were approximately
2,000+. The screening started with an
intensive exam called
Nursing Aptitude Test (NAT). After the result came out, only 200
qualified for
Interview. And after the interview, 180 were chosen
as the
newest students of the college.
The
other 4 schools are of the
same pattern in screening
potential freshmen. These schools are
privately managed and owned by certain
administrators and
managers. They don’t give NAT. They don’t do interview. They just
enroll all their applicants. In such, even though you are the
1000th applicant, you are still
accepted.
And so when a student is enrolled, it is expected that he will be molded into a nurse that he is supposed to become; a nurse that has the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitude. Apparently, this seems not applicable to the 4 nursing schools here in my city for the reason that majority of their students haven't even tried to pull out an IV catheter by themselves. Moreover, most of their students always fail on the annual Nursing Licensure Examinations (will be discussed later). And I've witnessed one time a group of students from one of these 4 nursing schools taunting a psychiatric patient.
And the worse is. . it is only on the 3rd year that these 4 schools give the tough NAT exam. And so, after the exam, almost half of the student population is eliminated from further continuing their study in the college. Those eliminated students are now left behind to find for themselves new nursing schools that would accept them. And the question now is.. what about the money that those students paid for the 3 years that they have stayed in the college?. . For the record, these 4 schools collect like 30,000 pesos (620 US Dollars) in every student per semester and one school year is composed of 2 semesters! So would this mean that the money paid is just like paid for nothing?!
I know that the student has something to do with his failure also but the idea that these schools should have screened these students on their 1st year well before accepting them. Furthermore, they should have given the NAT exam on the 1st year also. They should have somehow assessed if a particular student was mentally ready for the tiring, hectic, and mind-bugging course. In reality, they didn’t care. They just accept and accept students for the MONEY! And to retain the good record of their school in terms of the graduates they make, they trim down the student body on its last years through giving the dreaded NAT. They do this just in time when they have collected so much money already.
I don’t really know if there is a protocol here in the Philippines that NAT should be given on the first year or if its just alright to give it on the 3rd year and eliminate those who didn't pass. But for me, WVSU-CON is doing the right thing; giving the NAT on the first year unlike those 4 other schools. It is really clear that those schools are just after revenues. They don’t take into consideration the hardships and sacrifices of the parents; working hard, killing themselves with intense work just to pay the tuition fees of their children. Those administrators are just getting the money and after three years, they’ll just say: “YOURE OUT OF THIS COLLEGE.” Where is justice here? . .They are just taking advantage to those troubled students. Just because the student didn’t pass the NAT?! Such deception is laudable! “No control in accepting enrollees” is what these private administrators do just to gain money!
And so what comes with uncontrolled enrollees per school year? - Compromised teaching and opportunities in learning which would eventually lead to POOR NURSING EDUCATION. This is being affirmed by the standing of the 5 schools I am referring to the annual Board of Nursing Examinations given to nursing graduates here in the Philippines wanting to practice Nursing professionally.
There are around
65,000 nursing
examinees gathered in different
testing centers nationwide (
Philippines) to take
NLE Nursing Licensure Examination June 2008. The nursing board examination was given by the
Board of Nursing held on
June 1 & 2, 2008. This is the exam that I took because I am
batch 2008 of WVSU-CON. When the result came, WVSU-CON was ranked No.
2 in the
top performing nursing schools in the country since among its
172 examinees,
169 passed giving the school a
national passing percentage of 98%. We were all so
happy because we ranked 2nd
next only to
University of Sto. Tomas which is also a
premier university here in the
Philippines. The
Professional Regulation Commission – Philippines (PRC) announces that
27,765 out of
64,459 passed the exam.
So apparently, the situation I am
exposing above is not just
true here in my city but in the whole
Philippines.
Poor quality of nursing education is the price of the selfishness of all those private administrators.
Some of my batchmates. WVSU-CON Batch 2008
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