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After a long and uphill campaign, Manila was finally
chosen last week as the newest site for the National Council on
Licensure Examinations (NCLEX).
Journeying to Chicago last week,
a team led by Commission on Filipinos Overseas Chairman Dante A. Ang
convinced the directors of the National Council of State Boards of
Nursing to hold the NCLEX here.
In choosing Manila, Faith Fields,
president of the NCSBN Board of Directors, said the Philippine
government “has shown a deep commitment to ensuring a secure test
center in Manila and has been very responsive to NCSBN concerns.”
The NCSBN’s decision should
delight the thousands of Filipino nurses seeking work in the United
States. No longer would they have to spend their precious dollars
for airfare and accommodations to take the exams in Hong Kong or
Guam or Saipan.
It is but logical to have a NCLEX
test center in Manila. The Philippines is the biggest source of
nurses for hospitals and health-care institutions in the US. Fluency
in English, propensity to do hard work and a caring nature have long
given Filipinos a big edge over other nationalities.
The Philippines’ quest to be a
NCLEX site began in earnest in 2005, when Dr. Ang got together the
Philippine Nurses Association and the Philippine Nurses Association
of America to help lobby for the exams. A year earlier, the NCSBN
approved the first pilot NCLEX sites outside the US: Hong Kong,
London and Seoul. The three cities passed the stringent requirements
of the board, which include national security, economic climate;
similarity of local laws with US intellectual property and copyright
laws, numbers and locations of internationally educated nurses and
similarity of local nursing educational system to US nursing
educational system.
The task President Arroyo gave to
Dr. Ang’s group was to make a case for Manila as a suitable NCLEX
test center. They were making headway and the NCSBN was warming up
to Manila when the nursing exam scandal exploded. In a flash, all
the gains put together by Dr. Ang’s team collapsed like a house of
cards. The group had to get their campaign back on track.
In Chicago the Ang group
explained to the board the steps the government had taken after the
leak in the nursing licensure exam emerged, the investigation that
was launched, the disciplinary actions taken and the reforms
implemented to protect the integrity of the nursing examination and
the nursing profession.
Their efforts paid off when the
NCSBN approved unanimously gave its nod to Manila. “Placing a test
site in the Philippines will allow for greater customer service to
nurses without compromising the goal of safeguarding the public
health, safety and welfare of patients in the US,” NCSBN’s
Fields noted.
It was long in coming but that
vote of confidence is definitely most welcome.
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