CHICAGO, Illinois - The Philippines will now be a testing site of the United States' National Commission for the Licensure Examination (NCLEX), according to Faith Fields, president of the Chicago, Illinois-based National Council of State Board of Nursing, Inc. (NCSBN).
In announcing the decision to a shocked Philippine delegation headed by Commission on Filipinos Overseas Chairman Dante A. Ang over cocktail and dinner hosted by the NCSBN at Chicago’s Intercon Hotel Feb. 8, Fields said the members of the 15-person NCSBN board were impressed by the one hour and a half “inter-agency” presentation conducted by the visiting Philippine delegation, which assured the NCSBN that the Philippines can guarantee the integrity of the examinations and the safety of those administering the examinations.
The Philippine delegation assured NCSBN
that the nursing examination leakage last June was an isolated case. The
perpetrators involved in the cheating have already been investigated and are
being prosecuted.
The decision was also guided by the two
field trips to the Philippines
taken by Ms. Donney Dorsey, past president of the NCSBN, last March, followed
by Ms. Fields’ visit last October, when she had an audience with President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Malacanang.
‘Dr. Ang immediately relayed the message
of the good news to Philippine Consul General Blesila C. Cabrera,"
according to Philippine Vice Consul Roberto Bernardo, who broke the news to
this reporter.
Only a day earlier, Consul General
Cabrera hosted Dr. Ang and the Philippine delegation cocktails and snacks at
the Consulate, where they explained the objectives of their mission.
‘The first NCLEX will likely be held in
three months," according to CFO’s Rino D. Paez, senior emigrant services
officer. “The Pearson Vue, which administers the NCLEX in the US and in other
countries, will still conduct inspection of buildings for the exam sites and
other logistical operations. This will probably take three months."
Pearson Vue has been conducting three
other tests in the Philippines,
like G-MAT (Graduate Management Admission Test), and professional testing center
for Microsoft certification, in areas, including Mindanao.
Mrs. Fields, who was accompanied by
NCSBN’s Executive Director Cathy Apple and Casey Marks, the board’s associate
executive director for business operations, was joined in by Philippine delegation,
aside from Messrs. Ang and Paez, namely, Dr. Carmelita Abaquin, chairperson of
the Board of Nursing; Elfren Meneses of the anti-fraud and copyright office of
the National Bureau of Investigation; Aris Santos, Chief of Staff of Department
of Labor Secretary Arturo Brion; Leah Paquiz and Ruth Padilla, incumbent and
past president, respectively, of the Philippine Nurses Association; and Pearson
Vue’s consultant, Fraser Kargill.
The fee for taking NCLEX is $300 plus $150 for
internal testing. While there is an average of 12,000 Filipino nurses taking
NCLEX every year, there were 15,000 Filipino nurses who took NCLEX last year.
Passing NCLEX is the basic requirement to
apply for a nursing job in the United
States . This test is offered in the United States and other countries namely Hong Kong , South Korea
or London, England. Six other countries were
added to the list- Taiwan, India, Canada,
Germany, Japan and Mexico. The NCSB’s decision
Thursday, February 08, makes the Philippines the seventh.
Filipino nurses make up 50 to 60 percent
of the total examinees worldwide. About 50% of Filipino examinees pass the
NCLEX.
Because NCLEX will be held in the Philippines, Filipino nursing examinees taking
the tests will be saving a lot of money for their plane tickets and hotel
accommodation to such neighboring testing sites as Hongkong, Seoul,
South Korea, Taiwan, Guam or Saipan.
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